The glory of France and the erstwhile Whig hero comes up short in
this biography by a historian of decidedly Tory bent. It seems a
rarity these days to find a biography of Napoleon that does not
glorify the Corsican revolutionary. Johnson (The Renaissance, 2000,
etc.) surely does not. Instead, he writes, the defeat of Napoleon
and the subsequent Congress of Vienna are to be counted among the
great accomplishments of modern history, ushering in an era of
peace that would not end for nearly a century with the outbreak of
WWI-when, he asserts, the modern cult of Napoleon began. Had
Napoleon committed his campaigns of conquest today, Johnson further
asserts, he "would have been obliged to face a war crimes tribunal,
with an inevitable verdict of 'guilty' and a sentence of death or
life imprisonment." Reckoning that Napoleon's dream of empire cost
four or five million lives and incalculable destruction of
property, Johnson lays at his door blame for a number of sins,
including the "deification of force and war, the all-powerful
centralized state, the use of cultural propaganda to apotheosize
the autocrat, the marshaling of entire peoples in the pursuit of
personal and ideological power." In brief, Johnson charges,
Napoleon was less a liberator of Europe than a dictator of the sort
that would follow in the century afterward-a Hitler or Mussolini
for his day. The author recognizes Napoleon's talents as a
commander and bravery-throughout his career, he reckons, Napoleon
had 19 horses shot out from under him in battle-but still has
little use for the fellow, unlike more enthusiastic recent
biographers such as Frank McLynn (see below) and Robert Asprey.
Despite an evident distaste for his subject, Johnson's sharp-edged
view of Napoleon is well supported, and well worth considering.
(Kirkus Reviews)
A short and vivid biography, which deconstructs the Napoleonic myth
and reveals the reality of his rule. 'Written with his customary
verve and certainty' Andrew Roberts, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Written with
great wit and panache, this biography also has a serious purpose:
to make us face up to the moral bankruptcy of Napoleon's
dictatorship. Johnson tells the whole story: his astonishing gift
for battle tactics and his complete control of propaganda. His
audacious, hyperactive and aggressive leadership alongside his
failure as an international statesman, as Europe grew to hate him.
His marshals and ministers; his wives, mistresses. The mistakes he
made; the escape from Elba, and the world-changing events leading
up to Waterloo and the battle itself. This riveting account is a
fascinating look at one of the most notorious military leaders of
all time.
General
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