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Napoleon Bonaparte
A definitive biography of Bonaparte from his birth in Corsica to his death in exile on St Helena, this book examines all aspects of Bonaparte′s spectacular rise to power and his dizzying fall. It offers close examination of battlefield victories, personal torments, military genius, Bonaparte′s titanic ego and his relationships with the French government, Talleyrand, Wellington and Josephine. A consummate biography of a complex man.
944 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews
April 5, 2018
In retrospect, I think it might be best if a reader knew next to nothing about Napoleon Bonaparte before picking up this book. At eight hundred and eighty-eight pages it is a beast to tackle, and I can testify with confidence that an absence of knowledge will make the effort ever so much easier.
You will lack the means to recognize, for instance, how very many historical truths are being indiscriminately fudged and facts massaged to meet your author's agenda - which, as everyone acknowledges, is a tiring thing to be aware of. When told, for example, that Napoleon "never bothered with maps," you will believe this. You will, perhaps, be unaware of the Corsican's infamous campaign desk (which several modern-day furniture outlets have made a fortune reproducing) that was spread, night after night, with maps of such bewildering bounty as to keep any number of French cartographers in pinot and pate for life. You will be unaware of the secretary, the valet, the guard, the unfortunate ambassador or marshal who was summoned into his presence in the wee hours of any given morning to find the little general not simply pouring over such charts but actually crawling atop them to better place his pins. Maps were one of Napoleon's great obsessions - but possession of this knowledge will not serve you well in the reading of this work. Best to believe what Mr. Schom is desirous for you to believe, that Bonaparte and his one hundred forty-thousand troops simply took to hoof over Europe's many hills and dales until they stumbled across an army to fight.
It would be equally unhelpful, in this regard, to be aware of Napoleon's trademark battle preparations, military intelligence, tactical influences and strategic philosophy, as you will be asked to operate under the firm conviction that he had none. Great swathes of this book depend upon such ignorance, and it cannot to my eye be truly appreciated by a mind littered with...well, information. (It will also assist you greatly to forget, if you ever owned it to remember, that Monsieurs Barras, Bourrienne and Talleyrand have long been considered suspect sources on the subject of Bonaparte - each owning a rather fearsome axe to grind - and with whom, for reasons that will become apparent in a hot literary second, Mr. Schom adopts a fraternal bond.)
And finally, in the interest of providing the most pleasurable reading experience possible, I might advise you to flip your internal gullibility control to its highest setting. While you may manage - although heaven knows how - to get through the first seven hundred and ninety-two pages with your credulity unstretched, the Appendix B "Medical Notes" will, in fact, require this.
That said? Hop to! There's time here you could be wasting!
You will lack the means to recognize, for instance, how very many historical truths are being indiscriminately fudged and facts massaged to meet your author's agenda - which, as everyone acknowledges, is a tiring thing to be aware of. When told, for example, that Napoleon "never bothered with maps," you will believe this. You will, perhaps, be unaware of the Corsican's infamous campaign desk (which several modern-day furniture outlets have made a fortune reproducing) that was spread, night after night, with maps of such bewildering bounty as to keep any number of French cartographers in pinot and pate for life. You will be unaware of the secretary, the valet, the guard, the unfortunate ambassador or marshal who was summoned into his presence in the wee hours of any given morning to find the little general not simply pouring over such charts but actually crawling atop them to better place his pins. Maps were one of Napoleon's great obsessions - but possession of this knowledge will not serve you well in the reading of this work. Best to believe what Mr. Schom is desirous for you to believe, that Bonaparte and his one hundred forty-thousand troops simply took to hoof over Europe's many hills and dales until they stumbled across an army to fight.
It would be equally unhelpful, in this regard, to be aware of Napoleon's trademark battle preparations, military intelligence, tactical influences and strategic philosophy, as you will be asked to operate under the firm conviction that he had none. Great swathes of this book depend upon such ignorance, and it cannot to my eye be truly appreciated by a mind littered with...well, information. (It will also assist you greatly to forget, if you ever owned it to remember, that Monsieurs Barras, Bourrienne and Talleyrand have long been considered suspect sources on the subject of Bonaparte - each owning a rather fearsome axe to grind - and with whom, for reasons that will become apparent in a hot literary second, Mr. Schom adopts a fraternal bond.)
And finally, in the interest of providing the most pleasurable reading experience possible, I might advise you to flip your internal gullibility control to its highest setting. While you may manage - although heaven knows how - to get through the first seven hundred and ninety-two pages with your credulity unstretched, the Appendix B "Medical Notes" will, in fact, require this.
That said? Hop to! There's time here you could be wasting!
September 16, 2015
Terrible biography. Napoleon may have his faults but he deserves a fairer treatment than this. My review is based on less than half of its 900 pages. After the chapter on the Imperial coronation turned into a soap opera starring the Bonaparte family, I decided I couldn't go on. The remainder of the book just seemed too imposing.
Schom turns Napoleon into an amoral monster, eaten up with ambition. He places unfair emphasis on the Egyptian campaign while belittling Napoleon's victories. He spends too much time focusing on the negative side of the Napoleonic regime (censorship, heightened police power, ...) while no account is given of its reforms and the benefits of the return of stability to France. A great deal of trouble is also spent bemoaning the lot of the soldier in Napoleon's army while failing to note that those conditions were no different than those anywhere else in Europe. In some cases, in fact, they would likely have been better. To top it off, the book contains several mistakes in its history and, as I noted above, the style is often too gossipy to be taken seriously. Avoid this biased and untrustworthy account of 'le petit corporal'.
Schom turns Napoleon into an amoral monster, eaten up with ambition. He places unfair emphasis on the Egyptian campaign while belittling Napoleon's victories. He spends too much time focusing on the negative side of the Napoleonic regime (censorship, heightened police power, ...) while no account is given of its reforms and the benefits of the return of stability to France. A great deal of trouble is also spent bemoaning the lot of the soldier in Napoleon's army while failing to note that those conditions were no different than those anywhere else in Europe. In some cases, in fact, they would likely have been better. To top it off, the book contains several mistakes in its history and, as I noted above, the style is often too gossipy to be taken seriously. Avoid this biased and untrustworthy account of 'le petit corporal'.
February 12, 2020
Just another pointless hatchet job by a historian intent on making Napoleon the forerunner of both totalitarianism and just another long line of despots defeated by glorious Albion. This could have easily been written by William Pitt or one of the aristocrats Napoleon defeated in battle, since it is pretty much just a non-stop screed. You are better off reading Markham's account.
November 29, 2012
Having read a short biography of Napoléon I in the past, I was pleased and ready for this one--perhaps the longest and most detailed study available in English. The writing is good, the annotation sufficient and the subject fascinatingly outrageous.
Schom's book has been criticized by John Clubbe of the International Napoleonic Society for being a hatchet job on the emperor. It certainly is true that Napoleon comes across as no exemplary figure in either his public or private life, but should he? The guy was, after all, responsible for countless deaths, abysmal misery. While he was, for a time, an agent of modernization in Europe, he did succumb to the very traditional trappings of power in the end, making himself, members of his family and his cronies into a new aristocracy which, with the arguable exception of Louis Napoleon, didn't last very long before being replaced by the reactionaries of the old order. As a moral tale, Napoleon does appear to be an instance of the corruption encouraged by power. Indeed, the closest modern parallel that comes to my mind as regards his career is Mussolini, another Italian with dreams of grandeur.
Napoleon reads to me as a modern figure in all but one regard. This is to say that he seems accessible, understandable. The one aspect of his life which requires some thinking to comprehend is the very notion of an aristocracy by birth. Granted, this idea goes back far into antiquity as does the notion that conquerors, because of their victories, prove their virtue and have the right to create new dynasties. In a society of scarcity, when land, passed from father to son, is power, the idea that virtue is inherited makes some sense. Only the rich in such circumstances can afford education, polite manners, romantic idealism. But after the American, French and Haitian revolutions--not to mention the many "revolutions" inspired by liberating French troops (my picture of this, incidentally, is informed by R.R. Palmer's Age of Democratic Revolutions)--it is difficult to see how one in Napoleon's position could revert to apeing the very institutions he had devoted his younger years to combatting without a very bad conscience. On this score, Napoleon's inner life, the book fell short for me.
Schom's book has been criticized by John Clubbe of the International Napoleonic Society for being a hatchet job on the emperor. It certainly is true that Napoleon comes across as no exemplary figure in either his public or private life, but should he? The guy was, after all, responsible for countless deaths, abysmal misery. While he was, for a time, an agent of modernization in Europe, he did succumb to the very traditional trappings of power in the end, making himself, members of his family and his cronies into a new aristocracy which, with the arguable exception of Louis Napoleon, didn't last very long before being replaced by the reactionaries of the old order. As a moral tale, Napoleon does appear to be an instance of the corruption encouraged by power. Indeed, the closest modern parallel that comes to my mind as regards his career is Mussolini, another Italian with dreams of grandeur.
Napoleon reads to me as a modern figure in all but one regard. This is to say that he seems accessible, understandable. The one aspect of his life which requires some thinking to comprehend is the very notion of an aristocracy by birth. Granted, this idea goes back far into antiquity as does the notion that conquerors, because of their victories, prove their virtue and have the right to create new dynasties. In a society of scarcity, when land, passed from father to son, is power, the idea that virtue is inherited makes some sense. Only the rich in such circumstances can afford education, polite manners, romantic idealism. But after the American, French and Haitian revolutions--not to mention the many "revolutions" inspired by liberating French troops (my picture of this, incidentally, is informed by R.R. Palmer's Age of Democratic Revolutions)--it is difficult to see how one in Napoleon's position could revert to apeing the very institutions he had devoted his younger years to combatting without a very bad conscience. On this score, Napoleon's inner life, the book fell short for me.
June 18, 2025
Alan Schom begins his sprawling biography of Napoleon Bonaparte with a dedication to Emile Zola, “who gave his life to the struggle for historical truth.” In that same vein, I would like to begin my review with a dedication to the half acre of the rainforest which had the misfortune to give its life for Alan Schom’s struggle for historical lies. This biography’s factual errors are so numerous and baffling that I am somewhat at a loss to attribute a motive to them—Schom is either the most credulous and incompetent researcher alive today, or he has a grudge against the long-dead Emperor of the French, and spent ten years authoring this tome to poison the well as thoroughly as he possibly could for anyone uninformed enough to think that this drivel is a good-faith attempt to capture historical fact. The only reason I have not returned it to the bookstore that I purchased it from and demanded my money back is that I cannot, in good faith, allow my copy of this work out of my sight and into the hands of some other hapless reader. It is my burden to carry now.
Most works, no matter how poorly researched, at least manage to avoid inaccuracies in their introductions. Not this one! For all my criticisms of Alan Schom’s writing, I will give the devil his due: he’s an early riser. In the third paragraph of the preface, Schom states that he was “shocked to find there was no one-volume biography covering all aspects of [Napoleon’s] life.” Vincent Cronin, whose excellent one-volume biography of Napoleon I read (and reviewed on Goodreads) earlier this year, would certainly be surprised to hear that, as his book was published in 1972—unless I am as gravely mistaken about the nature of time as Schom would have me believe I am about the simplest facts of Napoleon’s life, I believe he managed to beat Schom to the punch by a few years.
A cursory glance at Schom’s sources helps explain some of his errors. Bourrienne, whose dismissal serves as one of the “biography’s” (written in quotes just this once, to indicate my disdain) only examples of Napoleon’s “sadism,” is understood by most serious historians to be a deeply dishonest and corrupt figure in French politics—this was not by any means a unique character trait, but he stands out, even by the standards of the time. According to this book, of course, the man was a saint, cruelly cast aside by Napoleon after a heated argument. Looking beyond the fact that it feels a little childish to characterize a leader as a sadist for firing a subordinate with whom he had serious disagreements, it will surprise no one to learn Schom’s source for this remarkably generous interpretation of Bourrienne’s story: Bourrienne himself! Schom draws liberally from his memoirs, uncritically parroting every claim that this undeniably biased man makes in a work designed to protect his own legacy.
This is not the only example of Schom’s approach to his research, but it is particularly telling: anyone with a bad thing to say about Napoleon is treated as a trustworthy source, and any positive writings about the man can be safely discarded as propaganda or outright lies.
His approach to Napoleon’s military achievements is the same: every battle, no matter how successful, is either a “disaster,” a “blunder,” or, when Schom is backed into a corner and forced to admit that Napoleon won, simply another example of the man’s insatiable thirst for blood and conquest. Austerlitz, which even the most fervently anti-Napoleon scholars will generally admit through gritted teeth to be Napoleon’s masterpiece, is here characterized as an accident! As Schom tells it, Napoleon just stumbled into one of the most decisive and brilliant military victories of all time. What luck!
Schom, despite smugly congratulating himself (look at me throwing out adverbs willy-nilly—I learned from the best, Alan!) in the preface for his ability to view history with the enlightened eye of an American, far above the petty nationalistic histories of the British and the French, has swallowed the English depiction of Napoleon hook, line, and sinker: Napoleon is at once a bumbling buffoon who shouldn’t be taken seriously, and also one of history’s greatest monsters—as wholly evil and Machiavellian as Hitler, and just as worthy of our hatred and fear. One of the most widely studied and researched men in all of history turns out to be a cartoonishly evil villain, and I guess it took someone with Alan Schom’s uniquely biased and lazy approach to history to bring that fact to light.
This is not to say that I think that there are no fair criticisms to be made of Napoleon. I cannot imagine that anyone is capable of crowning himself emperor without having something of an ego. Interestingly, though, one of Napoleon’s most indefensible actions—the suppression of the Haitian revolution and the reinstatement of slavery in Santo Domingo—is barely mentioned at all in this massive screed against the man, only coming up in a parenthetical aside in the middle of a wholly unrelated paragraph. Let me be unambiguous: this is, in my opinion, the largest stain on Napoleon’s whole legacy. Someone more talented than me could write a book twice the length of this one about the horrific treatment the Haitians received at the hands of the French and barely scratch the surface of the issue, but for Schom, it isn’t even important enough to warrant an entry in the index. He had better things to do, I guess, like indulging in histrionic hand-wringing about the emperor having the audacity to meet the other nations of Europe on the battlefield after they declared war on him. That feels somewhat telling, but, unlike Schom (who dedicated an entire appendix to his amateur attempts to diagnose Napoleon with half a dozen mental disorders), I am not in the habit of psychoanalyzing the people I write mean things about.
(In that same appendix, he makes the entirely unfounded claim that the emperor suffered from epilepsy—a claim which somehow manages to have even less evidence to support it than his outlandish, but not exactly unprecedented, claim that Napoleon was poisoned at St. Helena. Though, while I’m on the subject: he wasn’t. Grow up.)
I could go on; in fact, I originally intended to—I could correct a dozen other falsehoods from the first chapter alone, and many more from the rest of the book, but, frankly, I lack the willpower to keep going on like this. As a general rule, don’t trust a word this man says.
If you wish to know what it feels like to read this book, but lack the time (or, just as understandably, the inclination) to go out and read the thing for yourself, worry not: I have come up with a reasonable substitute: lock yourself in a dark room, take enough Benadryl to bring about a state of deliriant-induced psychosis, and listen to ABBA’s Eurovision-winning song “Waterloo” on repeat for several hours. When the spiders come (and believe me, they will), listen to the words they whisper to you. At worst, the experience will be just about as informative and enjoyable as the process of working your way through this stack of half-truths, lies by omission, and outright attempts at libel. As an added bonus, it will take less time!
Let me give a more serious recommendation: if you want to read a biased and ahistorical account of Napoleon’s actions in France, read Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution: A History. It is just as accurate as this leguminous pile of nonsense—as dense a stack of lies as this one, and speckled with occasional truths—but infinitely more poetic and readable. In 888 pages, Schom never comes close to approaching the potency and beauty of Carlyle’s famous description of 13 Vendémiaire’s “Whiff of Grapeshot.”
Or you could, you know, read something with any basis in historical fact. That could be fun, too.
Most works, no matter how poorly researched, at least manage to avoid inaccuracies in their introductions. Not this one! For all my criticisms of Alan Schom’s writing, I will give the devil his due: he’s an early riser. In the third paragraph of the preface, Schom states that he was “shocked to find there was no one-volume biography covering all aspects of [Napoleon’s] life.” Vincent Cronin, whose excellent one-volume biography of Napoleon I read (and reviewed on Goodreads) earlier this year, would certainly be surprised to hear that, as his book was published in 1972—unless I am as gravely mistaken about the nature of time as Schom would have me believe I am about the simplest facts of Napoleon’s life, I believe he managed to beat Schom to the punch by a few years.
A cursory glance at Schom’s sources helps explain some of his errors. Bourrienne, whose dismissal serves as one of the “biography’s” (written in quotes just this once, to indicate my disdain) only examples of Napoleon’s “sadism,” is understood by most serious historians to be a deeply dishonest and corrupt figure in French politics—this was not by any means a unique character trait, but he stands out, even by the standards of the time. According to this book, of course, the man was a saint, cruelly cast aside by Napoleon after a heated argument. Looking beyond the fact that it feels a little childish to characterize a leader as a sadist for firing a subordinate with whom he had serious disagreements, it will surprise no one to learn Schom’s source for this remarkably generous interpretation of Bourrienne’s story: Bourrienne himself! Schom draws liberally from his memoirs, uncritically parroting every claim that this undeniably biased man makes in a work designed to protect his own legacy.
This is not the only example of Schom’s approach to his research, but it is particularly telling: anyone with a bad thing to say about Napoleon is treated as a trustworthy source, and any positive writings about the man can be safely discarded as propaganda or outright lies.
His approach to Napoleon’s military achievements is the same: every battle, no matter how successful, is either a “disaster,” a “blunder,” or, when Schom is backed into a corner and forced to admit that Napoleon won, simply another example of the man’s insatiable thirst for blood and conquest. Austerlitz, which even the most fervently anti-Napoleon scholars will generally admit through gritted teeth to be Napoleon’s masterpiece, is here characterized as an accident! As Schom tells it, Napoleon just stumbled into one of the most decisive and brilliant military victories of all time. What luck!
Schom, despite smugly congratulating himself (look at me throwing out adverbs willy-nilly—I learned from the best, Alan!) in the preface for his ability to view history with the enlightened eye of an American, far above the petty nationalistic histories of the British and the French, has swallowed the English depiction of Napoleon hook, line, and sinker: Napoleon is at once a bumbling buffoon who shouldn’t be taken seriously, and also one of history’s greatest monsters—as wholly evil and Machiavellian as Hitler, and just as worthy of our hatred and fear. One of the most widely studied and researched men in all of history turns out to be a cartoonishly evil villain, and I guess it took someone with Alan Schom’s uniquely biased and lazy approach to history to bring that fact to light.
This is not to say that I think that there are no fair criticisms to be made of Napoleon. I cannot imagine that anyone is capable of crowning himself emperor without having something of an ego. Interestingly, though, one of Napoleon’s most indefensible actions—the suppression of the Haitian revolution and the reinstatement of slavery in Santo Domingo—is barely mentioned at all in this massive screed against the man, only coming up in a parenthetical aside in the middle of a wholly unrelated paragraph. Let me be unambiguous: this is, in my opinion, the largest stain on Napoleon’s whole legacy. Someone more talented than me could write a book twice the length of this one about the horrific treatment the Haitians received at the hands of the French and barely scratch the surface of the issue, but for Schom, it isn’t even important enough to warrant an entry in the index. He had better things to do, I guess, like indulging in histrionic hand-wringing about the emperor having the audacity to meet the other nations of Europe on the battlefield after they declared war on him. That feels somewhat telling, but, unlike Schom (who dedicated an entire appendix to his amateur attempts to diagnose Napoleon with half a dozen mental disorders), I am not in the habit of psychoanalyzing the people I write mean things about.
(In that same appendix, he makes the entirely unfounded claim that the emperor suffered from epilepsy—a claim which somehow manages to have even less evidence to support it than his outlandish, but not exactly unprecedented, claim that Napoleon was poisoned at St. Helena. Though, while I’m on the subject: he wasn’t. Grow up.)
I could go on; in fact, I originally intended to—I could correct a dozen other falsehoods from the first chapter alone, and many more from the rest of the book, but, frankly, I lack the willpower to keep going on like this. As a general rule, don’t trust a word this man says.
If you wish to know what it feels like to read this book, but lack the time (or, just as understandably, the inclination) to go out and read the thing for yourself, worry not: I have come up with a reasonable substitute: lock yourself in a dark room, take enough Benadryl to bring about a state of deliriant-induced psychosis, and listen to ABBA’s Eurovision-winning song “Waterloo” on repeat for several hours. When the spiders come (and believe me, they will), listen to the words they whisper to you. At worst, the experience will be just about as informative and enjoyable as the process of working your way through this stack of half-truths, lies by omission, and outright attempts at libel. As an added bonus, it will take less time!
Let me give a more serious recommendation: if you want to read a biased and ahistorical account of Napoleon’s actions in France, read Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution: A History. It is just as accurate as this leguminous pile of nonsense—as dense a stack of lies as this one, and speckled with occasional truths—but infinitely more poetic and readable. In 888 pages, Schom never comes close to approaching the potency and beauty of Carlyle’s famous description of 13 Vendémiaire’s “Whiff of Grapeshot.”
Or you could, you know, read something with any basis in historical fact. That could be fun, too.
September 2, 2013
What a complete piece of literary trash. This book absolutely couldn't be worse. Any British view point is better than this book. It is the most biased piece of crap I have ever read, and clearly no one edited this for grammar mistakes, because it has PLENTY. Also misleads everyone who knows nothing about Napoleon by giving them incorrect figures, statistics, and dates. Got about 100 pages in and stopped. Never own this book. EVER. I'm kind of sad that I own it. Makes everything in my library look excellent.
July 2, 2011
While engrossed in early American history and our relations with England from the Revolution through the early 1800's, a gentleman by the name of Napoleon popped up from time to time.
The details of his career had been left a foggy, distant memory in my subconscious, stashed there years ago sometime early in my college career. Not being a psych undergrad, his M.O. did not appeal to me at the time. As I learned then, he was, after all and quite simply, a tyrant bent on world domination. Apologists for his warmongering point to his installation and codification of a set of laws, establishment of schools and "representative" government while ignoring the incalculable numbers of dead, maimed and raped - not to mention the number of destroyed towns, villages and settlements (some several times), all accomplished in the name of "liberty".
In any case, I felt it high time to go back to it and get an overview of the man and his world.
By the looks of this tome I felt confident that by wading through it, I could get a good perspective of Napoleon's life and times and find out what I had missed by ignoring the man all these years.
I very much enjoyed the book - and blew through it in a week while on a very relaxing vacation. I would have appreciated a few more maps and illustrations, but those that appear within are germane to the story and worked well for me.
Some reviewers have accused Alan Schom of not liking Napoleon but while Mr. Schom does indeed insert some sarcasm in his comments from time to time, I felt more of a sense of the author being flabbergasted at the mix of chance, timing, ruthlessness and paranoia that defines Napoleon's accomplishments - I am reminded of the term "shock and awe" - and this only in reference to Napoleon's audacity.
On the other hand, in regards to Napoleon, what is there to like and why would we need to like him? One can admire his battlefield exploits and his ability to inspire his armies and one may also be impressed by his mastery of subterfuge and depth of vision, but he was most certainly troubled and at the end hated by most of the known world for the misery he left in his wake.
'Nuff Said!!
Good overview of Napoleon's early life, loves, officer corps, campaign's, political sleight-of-hand, empire building and ultimate self destruction. The book also gives the reader excellent references for future research on the life and times of Napoleon.
The details of his career had been left a foggy, distant memory in my subconscious, stashed there years ago sometime early in my college career. Not being a psych undergrad, his M.O. did not appeal to me at the time. As I learned then, he was, after all and quite simply, a tyrant bent on world domination. Apologists for his warmongering point to his installation and codification of a set of laws, establishment of schools and "representative" government while ignoring the incalculable numbers of dead, maimed and raped - not to mention the number of destroyed towns, villages and settlements (some several times), all accomplished in the name of "liberty".
In any case, I felt it high time to go back to it and get an overview of the man and his world.
By the looks of this tome I felt confident that by wading through it, I could get a good perspective of Napoleon's life and times and find out what I had missed by ignoring the man all these years.
I very much enjoyed the book - and blew through it in a week while on a very relaxing vacation. I would have appreciated a few more maps and illustrations, but those that appear within are germane to the story and worked well for me.
Some reviewers have accused Alan Schom of not liking Napoleon but while Mr. Schom does indeed insert some sarcasm in his comments from time to time, I felt more of a sense of the author being flabbergasted at the mix of chance, timing, ruthlessness and paranoia that defines Napoleon's accomplishments - I am reminded of the term "shock and awe" - and this only in reference to Napoleon's audacity.
On the other hand, in regards to Napoleon, what is there to like and why would we need to like him? One can admire his battlefield exploits and his ability to inspire his armies and one may also be impressed by his mastery of subterfuge and depth of vision, but he was most certainly troubled and at the end hated by most of the known world for the misery he left in his wake.
'Nuff Said!!
Good overview of Napoleon's early life, loves, officer corps, campaign's, political sleight-of-hand, empire building and ultimate self destruction. The book also gives the reader excellent references for future research on the life and times of Napoleon.
October 12, 2017
This biography has some very good points to it. For example, it devotes entire chapters to Tellyrand and Fouche. However, one thing I hate about so many historians, especially military historians, is to make the losing general in a battle seem like a fool, or the winner just lucky. I've never commanded an army in battle, but I imagine it is a lot harder than armchair general historians appreciate. Also, this author clearly hates Bonaparte. For sure, there is much to dislike about N.B., but the author lets it bias his work. Anyhow, I'm glad to have read this book, as I learned a LOT from it, but the authors style left much to be desired.
January 3, 2008
Well written and for its length it does a good job of holding one's attention.
Unfortunately, Schom appears to have a grudge against Bonaparte. When he wins, he's lucky. When he loses, it's incompetence. Those who love him are deluded by Nappy's propaganda. Those who hate him are clear-eyed realists. Truth is Revolutionary France was no place for the faint of heart, so any one who came to the fore at this juncture of history was going to be a shark.
The biography would have been better served by examining why this supremely talented, ambitious and ruthless man appealed to so many despite his many flaws.
Unfortunately, Schom appears to have a grudge against Bonaparte. When he wins, he's lucky. When he loses, it's incompetence. Those who love him are deluded by Nappy's propaganda. Those who hate him are clear-eyed realists. Truth is Revolutionary France was no place for the faint of heart, so any one who came to the fore at this juncture of history was going to be a shark.
The biography would have been better served by examining why this supremely talented, ambitious and ruthless man appealed to so many despite his many flaws.
December 21, 2012
Easy, if depressing, read. You might hope for something larger than life, but instead you see an almost garden-variety tale of psychopathy, megalomania and cronyism -- tiresomely, fearsomely reminiscent of Hitler. The writing and scholarship seem very sound, the pace brisk, and Schom makes no secret of his feelings about Napoleon and many of his hangers-on. A very well-written book, laying bare the essential meanness of his subject.
June 3, 2012
You don't need to read very much of this book to realize that Alan Schom obviously had an anti-Napoleon axe to grind while writing this biography. Anyone searching for an enjoyable, evenhanded presentation of the life and career of a fascinating historical figure will need not look to this flawed work.
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January 11, 2025A terrible polemic against Napoleon. The reviews did warn me...
It was difficult to get a full picture of Napoleon because the author was so invested in construing everything he did in the most negative light possible. Napoleon's incredible rise to power and remarkable victories are all written off as a pyrrhic and a result of devious fortune. Napoleon's enemies are all portrayed as angels saving Europe from this terrible war-mongering short-man (author seems to still believe the myth Napoleon was short), nothing is said about their own short-comings.
After reading this I have no understanding about how exactly one man from an unremarkable background was able to gain control of the most powerful country in Europe and expand it's borders beyond anything seen in a thousand years. According to the author Napoleon had no skills he really just bumbled his way into all of this.
Also after reading this I have no understanding of the popular appeal of this Man? Why did so many people continue to rally to him over the years, like the writer Stendhal who continued to look fondly to him in his famous novels years into the Restoration? Or how did a Bonaparte line of succession continue to be a political line in France until the 19th century?
And if the French were so relieved to be rid of him how did he so easily take power again during the '100 days' after his escape from Elba? The new Bourbon King being reliant on Napoleonic officers in a disloyal army (as the author uses to explain his success) doesn't cut it for me.
I understand writing a biography from the angle that Napoleon was ultimately a bad ruler for France and Europe but writing it while not properly taking into account why he was so appealing as a leader or acknowledging his skills as a General and leader is woefully short and one-sided.
Also stylistically I didnt like how the author focused so much on an action by action minutiae of Battles while breezily leaving only a few pages to Napoleon's politics (of course the short reflections on politics made to make his decisions look as bad as possible)
This biography is so bad im inclined to immediately read another better biography of Napoleon but not sure if I have it in me to read one back to back.
It was difficult to get a full picture of Napoleon because the author was so invested in construing everything he did in the most negative light possible. Napoleon's incredible rise to power and remarkable victories are all written off as a pyrrhic and a result of devious fortune. Napoleon's enemies are all portrayed as angels saving Europe from this terrible war-mongering short-man (author seems to still believe the myth Napoleon was short), nothing is said about their own short-comings.
After reading this I have no understanding about how exactly one man from an unremarkable background was able to gain control of the most powerful country in Europe and expand it's borders beyond anything seen in a thousand years. According to the author Napoleon had no skills he really just bumbled his way into all of this.
Also after reading this I have no understanding of the popular appeal of this Man? Why did so many people continue to rally to him over the years, like the writer Stendhal who continued to look fondly to him in his famous novels years into the Restoration? Or how did a Bonaparte line of succession continue to be a political line in France until the 19th century?
And if the French were so relieved to be rid of him how did he so easily take power again during the '100 days' after his escape from Elba? The new Bourbon King being reliant on Napoleonic officers in a disloyal army (as the author uses to explain his success) doesn't cut it for me.
I understand writing a biography from the angle that Napoleon was ultimately a bad ruler for France and Europe but writing it while not properly taking into account why he was so appealing as a leader or acknowledging his skills as a General and leader is woefully short and one-sided.
Also stylistically I didnt like how the author focused so much on an action by action minutiae of Battles while breezily leaving only a few pages to Napoleon's politics (of course the short reflections on politics made to make his decisions look as bad as possible)
This biography is so bad im inclined to immediately read another better biography of Napoleon but not sure if I have it in me to read one back to back.
Read
July 25, 2011THis is crap. The man has a vendetta against Napoleon and is a highly biased, and it shows in every paragraph. Avoid at all cost unless you like repetition of "the man is an egomaniac.."
December 7, 2023
This book was initially going to get a three-star review, but having spent some time contemplating the merits of the book, I am going to break with some other critics who have given the book a three-star review. Do I agree with the author on everything? Certainly not, but Alan Schom has not produced a work devoid of logic or research. A level of detail shows a high level of engagement with material from the period. The book is written well; it works through a packed life at a good pace, not leaving the reader bored. One might argue that despite being over 800 pages long, the book still feels like a whirlwind tour of the life of Napoleon.
The book shines in describing the strategic and tactical aspects of Napoleon's campaigns. Schom is able to explain complex manoeuvres in a way that even someone like me can understand. Schom's analysis of the entourage around Napoleon during his time as Emperor is fascinating, and Fouche and Talleyrand come alive as characters.
The book tries to dispel myths that originate in the propaganda that Napoleon himself issued. The book presents a narcissistic, stubborn and emotionally underdeveloped leader. I believe there is probably some truth to these accusations. But Schom fails to present evidence for a charismatic side of Napoleon. At times, he acknowledges that the emperor wins people over, but he does not allow that line of thinking to be explored. The result is that a reader is left wondering why Napoleon was ever allowed power and how he wasn't immediately removed from it.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with Schom's conclusion that Napoleon was poisoned. His arguments are interesting, but I don't believe they validate his claim that Napoleon was obviously murdered. I believe that in a time before safety standards, it is possible that Napoleon was inadvertently made ill, or possibly the doctors on the island were right, and he had stomach cancer. Schom stands alone amongst major historians in his conclusions on Napoleon's death.
If you read a book about how amazing Napoleon was and would like something to challenge that, Alan Schom is your man. It is a very readable and interesting biography of an immensely complicated man.
The book shines in describing the strategic and tactical aspects of Napoleon's campaigns. Schom is able to explain complex manoeuvres in a way that even someone like me can understand. Schom's analysis of the entourage around Napoleon during his time as Emperor is fascinating, and Fouche and Talleyrand come alive as characters.
The book tries to dispel myths that originate in the propaganda that Napoleon himself issued. The book presents a narcissistic, stubborn and emotionally underdeveloped leader. I believe there is probably some truth to these accusations. But Schom fails to present evidence for a charismatic side of Napoleon. At times, he acknowledges that the emperor wins people over, but he does not allow that line of thinking to be explored. The result is that a reader is left wondering why Napoleon was ever allowed power and how he wasn't immediately removed from it.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with Schom's conclusion that Napoleon was poisoned. His arguments are interesting, but I don't believe they validate his claim that Napoleon was obviously murdered. I believe that in a time before safety standards, it is possible that Napoleon was inadvertently made ill, or possibly the doctors on the island were right, and he had stomach cancer. Schom stands alone amongst major historians in his conclusions on Napoleon's death.
If you read a book about how amazing Napoleon was and would like something to challenge that, Alan Schom is your man. It is a very readable and interesting biography of an immensely complicated man.
January 1, 2024
In this author’s account, Napoleon was a megalomaniac with insatiable need to conquer and subjugate, and I mean insatiable, until the piper demanded payment.
800 pages not counting appendices and other reference notes, details of every battle and bio notes of many many people, which I skimmed, just too much. He unleashed chaos on Europe, his soldiers turned loose to pillage and rape and burn villages to the ground, not a nice man but indeed a brilliant general and tactician.
One of the things I learned was that Waterloo came after his escape from Elba, he actually reclaimed the throne of emperor and had amassed a huge army and tried to reconquer lost lands, resulting in tens of thousands more deaths. What a dick. He was then planning to go to America till the British said wait a minute little froggie man and sent him to far away St. Helena, where he lived in relative ease and plenty will family, friends, and 20 servants, stables, and provided large lands for riding. The Brits kept a company of soldiers on the island to prevent his escaping again or being rescued by loyalists, would have been super expensive and I don’t understand why they didn’t just throw him in irons in a deep dark dungeon somewhere.
I read some of the 1 star reviews and they were all NB admirers or at least critical of the author’s inaccuracies and prejudices, and I did notice many instances of what seemed editorializing included in the text. I plan to see the new Ridley Scott movie and after that plan to never read another word about the self proclaimed emperor.
800 pages not counting appendices and other reference notes, details of every battle and bio notes of many many people, which I skimmed, just too much. He unleashed chaos on Europe, his soldiers turned loose to pillage and rape and burn villages to the ground, not a nice man but indeed a brilliant general and tactician.
One of the things I learned was that Waterloo came after his escape from Elba, he actually reclaimed the throne of emperor and had amassed a huge army and tried to reconquer lost lands, resulting in tens of thousands more deaths. What a dick. He was then planning to go to America till the British said wait a minute little froggie man and sent him to far away St. Helena, where he lived in relative ease and plenty will family, friends, and 20 servants, stables, and provided large lands for riding. The Brits kept a company of soldiers on the island to prevent his escaping again or being rescued by loyalists, would have been super expensive and I don’t understand why they didn’t just throw him in irons in a deep dark dungeon somewhere.
I read some of the 1 star reviews and they were all NB admirers or at least critical of the author’s inaccuracies and prejudices, and I did notice many instances of what seemed editorializing included in the text. I plan to see the new Ridley Scott movie and after that plan to never read another word about the self proclaimed emperor.
August 28, 2020
Terrible. Surprisingly uninformed. Hatchet-job. Don't waste your time on this book..!
I abandoned this book while about halfway in when Schom’s never-ending negative gloss / distortion on everything done by Napoleon got on my nerve. Sure Napoleon was by no means perfect, but this “biography” is totally unbalanced. In the part of the book I read, Schom quotes Napoleon's disgruntled former secretary Bourienne extensively and nearly exclusively, thereby painting a very dim picture without counterbalance. Schom also makes a point of highlighting every little humiliation Napoleon suffered in his private life, even if these have nothing to do with the sweep of the story.
Final point, for sure there are a lot of uncritically positive books about Napoleon - so anyone looking for a different sound will be entertained by this. But please let this neither be the first nor last book you ever read about N.
I abandoned this book while about halfway in when Schom’s never-ending negative gloss / distortion on everything done by Napoleon got on my nerve. Sure Napoleon was by no means perfect, but this “biography” is totally unbalanced. In the part of the book I read, Schom quotes Napoleon's disgruntled former secretary Bourienne extensively and nearly exclusively, thereby painting a very dim picture without counterbalance. Schom also makes a point of highlighting every little humiliation Napoleon suffered in his private life, even if these have nothing to do with the sweep of the story.
Final point, for sure there are a lot of uncritically positive books about Napoleon - so anyone looking for a different sound will be entertained by this. But please let this neither be the first nor last book you ever read about N.
October 9, 2021
Whew...this took me along time to read. Mostly, I found it full of dry facts and the narrative was not at all engaging. The author has clear bias against his subject, which didn't at first turn me off, but made me want to read another biography that might have a more balanced viewpoint. The only thing that kept me going through much of this book was simply that I hate to start one and leave it unfinished. I didn't totally hate it, but it could have been so much better.
November 11, 2021
Safe to say that the author isn’t a fan of the Emperor & really does highlight all his faults, both moral & professional. Both the Egypt & Russian campaigns are presented as megalomaniac plans with a disregard for logistical issues. He even abandons his own army in the former for political ambition. This is a biography, not a military history, so any mitigating tactical skills are not really mentioned. I did enjoy the book on the basis of biographical narrative.
January 21, 2023
Watch nepoleon 2002 web series on moviearchives.com
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2011
Excellent one-volume biography of Napoleon, let down by sloppy editing. The spelling errors (really!) and the sentence construction, for me, detracted from what was otherwise a very readable biography. (This was the 1997 hardcover edition) The author (Alan Schom) seems not to have been a fan of Napoleon. I had expected something of a eulogy for a great man; instead I found his many faults highlighted. It was ironic that he wanted to be in power (at first) so that he could make sure Corsica no longer suffered the dictatorship of foreigners! The speed of his rise in the French Army seems to have been partially due to serendipity - one faction of the ongoing revolutionary groups needed a strong army to be part of their faction, and Napoleon fit the bill, and thus moved up the Army ladder swiftly. I learned a lot about the French campaign in Egypt (1805), which was basically a disaster (from the French viewpoint), a disaster left behind by Napoleon as he exited back to France. We all know about the disaster that was the 1812 invasion of Russia; the invasion of Spain seems to have been no less a disaster, but is not as widely discussed as it took place over a few years. He seems to have set up war campaigns without gathering good intelligence, instead relying on force of will. All that said, he had many flashes of brilliance, and on first coming to power, he stabilized the French government, which was in revolutionary chaos, which improvement made him initially very popular. But he also set up an all-encompassing secret police, whose detailed reports he read every morning. And of course he set up the conscription, from which he garnered hundreds of thousands of young men to make up his armies. He obviously was a brilliant general in many ways, but the logistics were left to others, and his mind-changing must have been tough to live with. His wars were so much about greed - they seem to have been mostly unnecessary, calculated only to gather more loot for the French treasury and for Napoleon himself. The book has several chapters devoted to Napoleon’s contemporaries and colleagues, which highlights their roles, and makes the book even more interesting. It also goes into his family relationships – he tried to give crowns to all his brothers and sisters, even to many of his field marshals, but that was another set of disasters that backfired. All in all, one wonders how he lasted so long….. And the Hundred Days return is still a mystery; when large parts of France hated him, he still managed to raise a new army. Great book. I wonder if a different biography would have a different viewpoint.
February 12, 2013
This is the most remarkable biography I have ever read.
I have a basic grasp of the Napoleonic era, and have read histories of the Peninsular War and the Russian Campaign and the like, but I have never read such a clear and evocative precis of the little Corsican sociopath himself.
Like the little Austrian sociopath 150 years later, the man himself diminishes the more you know about him. The child of a rebellious political environment, always arrogant and self-aggrandizing, he changed the face of Europe for the worse, killing upwards of three million human beings and wounding and assaulting untold millions more in the process.
A brilliant, energetic and improvisational general, he never mastered the disciplines of logistics and intelligence the way his ultimate nemesis, Wellington, did. Alan Schom details his pattern of failure from the abortive and incompetently executed Egyptian campaign onwards, and documents the same mistakes made over and over by a arrogant little prick who was so self-involved he was incapable of learning from his spectacular and deadly mistakes.
The only thing lacking--which is hardly a critique of this masterful biography!--is an examination of the sociology of dictatorship. How is it that such spectacularly incompetent administrators repeatedly insinuate themselves into the highest offices, from the Roman Republic to modern day developing nations to the rather broken republic to our south (I am writing this from Canada)?
If you want to learn more about how the political landscape of Europe was reshaped 200 years ago by a disgusting nutjob and his legions of emotionally-addled followers, you could not do better than read this meticulous, lively and well-reference work.
October 25, 2021
Books on Napoleon Bonaparte are a mainstay of any historical bookshelf worth its salt. The downside to this is that once a basic understanding of his life has been established, if one biography has been read then they seemingly all have been. Accordingly, finding a different angle or varying theses from which to present the story is necessary in order to view the French leader in a new light.
This is where Napoleon Bonaparte manages to set itself apart as a unique telling of a unique life.
While in many ways a standard biography, author Alan Schom makes his distaste for Le Petit Caporal pretty clear. His criticism of Napoleon's lack of overall coordination and provisioning in the medical sphere during the Egyptian campaign is one of several instances where he does not shy away from pointing out shortcomings. The number of unnecessary deaths which occurred due to a lack of basic casualty-treating supplies dings his reputation for undaunted mastery of the military theater, as does his abandoning of his men when the going got tough in both the Egyptian and Russian campaigns.
The outright fabrications and falsehoods Napoleon utilized to downplay his defeats at places like Acre are used to show his mastery at public relations and an amoral willingness to do anything in the service of acquiring more power. Napoleon’s decision to appoint unqualified family members as monarchs in conquered territory, particularly brother Joseph in Spain, also comes in for censure.
In other ways the book matter-of-factly lays out the Napoleonic saga in incredibly well-written prose. Napoleon’s birth in Corsica, his education at the Paris L’Ecole Militaire, his rise to fame “saving” the Revolution on 13 Vendemiaire (actually October 5th, 1795), the early campaigning in Italy and meteoric rise through the military ranks; these are thoroughly covered with seemingly few details left on the cutting room floor. Everything else which would be expected out of any competent Napoleon biography is of course included: the Machine Infernale assassination plot, the literal imprisonment of a pope who hurt Napoleon’s feelings, the 1804 ceremony crowning him emperor at Notre Dame Cathedral. But the personal elements receive so-so treatment, with neither Napoleon’s first wife Josephine nor second spouse Marie Louise leaving an impactful memory upon the book’s completion.
A handful of battles like Austerlitz, Wagram, and Waterloo receive exceptionally descriptive treatment, but the political reform side of Napoleon’s reign receives short shrift in Schom’s otherwise detailed book. There is mention of the Concordat of 1801 as well as his ironic claims to be liberating neighboring areas from monarchical rule, but these are brief and in passing. There could also have been more time spent explaining the Seven Coalitions and the key players spearheading this brave opposition to expansionist France.
Although Schom does not come out and say it, the invasion of surrounding countries and their reduction to satellite status, a situation which concludes with the breaking of the Holy Roman Empire and ultimately an overstretched French state, had parallels with fascist Germany’s failed attempts to establish their own hegemony over less powerful European states. The parallels between the disastrous invasion of Russia and the almost identical mistake made one hundred fifty years later did not even need to be pointed out to astute readers.
The author did nice work outlining the guerrilla warfare that bogged down the Grand Armee in post-Dos de Mayo uprising Spain, nicely laying out how the ill-advised invasion of the Iberian Peninsula established that Napoleon's invulnerability was just a myth. The parallels between this and the experience of Western countries in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan come through as the Iberian quagmire comes into focus. The Duke of Wellington’s successes in aiding the Spanish gave an early look at the manner in which he would ultimately do Napoleon in at Waterloo, and there is an admirable amount of detail in laying out just how the pointless front in Spain collapsed.
The planned invasion of England is certainly not skimmed over. The huge amount of preparation that went into planning this abandoned venture is explained in workmanlike paragraphs, and the Battle of Trafalgar has an excellently written portion dedicated to explaining how it unfolded. These two events, both of which could be given short shrift in the broader Napoleonic Era context, are nonetheless walked through with no hint of rush.
The contributions of his generals-which, as Schom also points out, Napoleon frequently failed to properly acknowledge-are not overlooked. Marshals Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Louis-Nicolas Davout, and Jean Lannes play supporting roles, while Michel Ney and particularly Joachim Murat (given his marriage to Napoleon's sister Caroline and ultimately betrayal of Napoleon) are given especially close looks. The descriptions of Joseph Fouche, Napoleon’s headstrong Parisian commissioner of police and the former Revolutionary France era butcher, are particularly fascinating to read through. The duplicity and malevolence of so many characters in Napoleon’s orbit comes through well as the book unfolds. Frankly, it felt as if each one of these men (as well as the few women the First Consul allowed to get close to him) could have a full length biography of their own.
The section on Napoleon's post-Battle of Leipzig banishment to Elba was rushed, but there is ample detail regarding his final exile to St. Helena after the One Hundred Days defeat. The intrigues on the latter island among what was left of Napoleon’s inner circle are not shied away from examining.
This is a solid factual story clearly written by a historian who spent time getting to know Napoleon’s ins and outs. Having spent this time researching, however, he clearly came away viewing the man as an egotistical warmonger who left millions of deaths in his wake and, largely thanks to his Continental System, badly damaged the economies of dozens of countries. But most readers will be able to overlook this editorializing owing to Alan Schom’s strong understanding of the Napoleonic universe and the commentary’s presentation in the form of contemporary statements.
The book would earn closer to four and a half stars than four were that an option, as those who finish this outstanding biography will have a more enriched understanding of the French icon’s impactful life. It certainly is more than an uninspired run-of-the-mill history of Napoleon’s life and times, going a step further than a lazily written accounting would dare to tread.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
This is where Napoleon Bonaparte manages to set itself apart as a unique telling of a unique life.
While in many ways a standard biography, author Alan Schom makes his distaste for Le Petit Caporal pretty clear. His criticism of Napoleon's lack of overall coordination and provisioning in the medical sphere during the Egyptian campaign is one of several instances where he does not shy away from pointing out shortcomings. The number of unnecessary deaths which occurred due to a lack of basic casualty-treating supplies dings his reputation for undaunted mastery of the military theater, as does his abandoning of his men when the going got tough in both the Egyptian and Russian campaigns.
The outright fabrications and falsehoods Napoleon utilized to downplay his defeats at places like Acre are used to show his mastery at public relations and an amoral willingness to do anything in the service of acquiring more power. Napoleon’s decision to appoint unqualified family members as monarchs in conquered territory, particularly brother Joseph in Spain, also comes in for censure.
In other ways the book matter-of-factly lays out the Napoleonic saga in incredibly well-written prose. Napoleon’s birth in Corsica, his education at the Paris L’Ecole Militaire, his rise to fame “saving” the Revolution on 13 Vendemiaire (actually October 5th, 1795), the early campaigning in Italy and meteoric rise through the military ranks; these are thoroughly covered with seemingly few details left on the cutting room floor. Everything else which would be expected out of any competent Napoleon biography is of course included: the Machine Infernale assassination plot, the literal imprisonment of a pope who hurt Napoleon’s feelings, the 1804 ceremony crowning him emperor at Notre Dame Cathedral. But the personal elements receive so-so treatment, with neither Napoleon’s first wife Josephine nor second spouse Marie Louise leaving an impactful memory upon the book’s completion.
A handful of battles like Austerlitz, Wagram, and Waterloo receive exceptionally descriptive treatment, but the political reform side of Napoleon’s reign receives short shrift in Schom’s otherwise detailed book. There is mention of the Concordat of 1801 as well as his ironic claims to be liberating neighboring areas from monarchical rule, but these are brief and in passing. There could also have been more time spent explaining the Seven Coalitions and the key players spearheading this brave opposition to expansionist France.
Although Schom does not come out and say it, the invasion of surrounding countries and their reduction to satellite status, a situation which concludes with the breaking of the Holy Roman Empire and ultimately an overstretched French state, had parallels with fascist Germany’s failed attempts to establish their own hegemony over less powerful European states. The parallels between the disastrous invasion of Russia and the almost identical mistake made one hundred fifty years later did not even need to be pointed out to astute readers.
The author did nice work outlining the guerrilla warfare that bogged down the Grand Armee in post-Dos de Mayo uprising Spain, nicely laying out how the ill-advised invasion of the Iberian Peninsula established that Napoleon's invulnerability was just a myth. The parallels between this and the experience of Western countries in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan come through as the Iberian quagmire comes into focus. The Duke of Wellington’s successes in aiding the Spanish gave an early look at the manner in which he would ultimately do Napoleon in at Waterloo, and there is an admirable amount of detail in laying out just how the pointless front in Spain collapsed.
The planned invasion of England is certainly not skimmed over. The huge amount of preparation that went into planning this abandoned venture is explained in workmanlike paragraphs, and the Battle of Trafalgar has an excellently written portion dedicated to explaining how it unfolded. These two events, both of which could be given short shrift in the broader Napoleonic Era context, are nonetheless walked through with no hint of rush.
The contributions of his generals-which, as Schom also points out, Napoleon frequently failed to properly acknowledge-are not overlooked. Marshals Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Louis-Nicolas Davout, and Jean Lannes play supporting roles, while Michel Ney and particularly Joachim Murat (given his marriage to Napoleon's sister Caroline and ultimately betrayal of Napoleon) are given especially close looks. The descriptions of Joseph Fouche, Napoleon’s headstrong Parisian commissioner of police and the former Revolutionary France era butcher, are particularly fascinating to read through. The duplicity and malevolence of so many characters in Napoleon’s orbit comes through well as the book unfolds. Frankly, it felt as if each one of these men (as well as the few women the First Consul allowed to get close to him) could have a full length biography of their own.
The section on Napoleon's post-Battle of Leipzig banishment to Elba was rushed, but there is ample detail regarding his final exile to St. Helena after the One Hundred Days defeat. The intrigues on the latter island among what was left of Napoleon’s inner circle are not shied away from examining.
This is a solid factual story clearly written by a historian who spent time getting to know Napoleon’s ins and outs. Having spent this time researching, however, he clearly came away viewing the man as an egotistical warmonger who left millions of deaths in his wake and, largely thanks to his Continental System, badly damaged the economies of dozens of countries. But most readers will be able to overlook this editorializing owing to Alan Schom’s strong understanding of the Napoleonic universe and the commentary’s presentation in the form of contemporary statements.
The book would earn closer to four and a half stars than four were that an option, as those who finish this outstanding biography will have a more enriched understanding of the French icon’s impactful life. It certainly is more than an uninspired run-of-the-mill history of Napoleon’s life and times, going a step further than a lazily written accounting would dare to tread.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
April 2, 2008
I excitedly delved into this book. The thickness of the book hinted that much about Napoleon would be revealed. It was not to be and I quickly wished that Schom's book had been thinner. There is no spirit in his work. It seems as if the author was busy simply regurgitating information that could be found in a number of places. He did do a better job of pointing on the importance of Napoleon's generals, but even that seemed to be a sterile endeavor.
July 20, 2017
Ok, so the reviews of Napoleon: A Life by Alan Scholm are basically 50/50. Half are good, half are 1-star reviews because the author "puts Napoleon down/hates Napoleon".
Okay, so what's wrong with that? Everyone has their own opinion. The author can state his opinion if he wants, it's his work. As for me, I'm only around page 29-30. It's a 800-900 page book, but it's very good and I don't see any instances of Scholm putting Nap down yet. Even so, I doubt I would even notice.
Okay, so what's wrong with that? Everyone has their own opinion. The author can state his opinion if he wants, it's his work. As for me, I'm only around page 29-30. It's a 800-900 page book, but it's very good and I don't see any instances of Scholm putting Nap down yet. Even so, I doubt I would even notice.
June 20, 2008
I needed a complete bio of Napoleon for research, this book fit the bill but poorly. It really comes across as a litany of battle after battle (which, to an extent is accurate). Still, it's written in a leaden style, and I'd at least expect complete sentences from a published historian, but that seems too much to ask of this book...
August 18, 2018
Excellent, intriguing history
I had very little knowledge of Napoleon. This book is extremely well written, well referenced and balances well the depth of characterisation of key individuals with the much broader geopolitical and military contexts. It has been almost impossible to put the book down.
I had very little knowledge of Napoleon. This book is extremely well written, well referenced and balances well the depth of characterisation of key individuals with the much broader geopolitical and military contexts. It has been almost impossible to put the book down.
November 13, 2016
It took me a year and a half, but I finally finished this book. I decided to read it after reading an article about Napoleon, and realized I knew nothing about him and his times. Now, I do. And let me say this: If France and Europe can survive this madman and war-monger, we can survive Trump.
December 14, 2014
Well researched and well written. Praises end there. If you exam the language used this is perhaps the most biased bio I've yet read on anyone. Hatchet job entirely
September 29, 2022
I believe Napoleon was a "great" man in the sense that he spelled the end of feudalism and the rise of the nation-state. The author says that he was a genius but it's hard to see. Mostly what he seemed to be a genius at was winning battles (not wars!) and dreaming big dreams. Unfortunately for Europe and particularly for the French, those dreams were of his personal glory, and many of the battles he won were completely unnecessary, and only fueled the hatred of all Europe against him. In the end we remember him as a man who tried and failed.
I'm afraid many people excuse this by saying that "at least he failed while dreaming big." But again those dreams led to countless deaths and widespread destruction, such that the author concludes he was a psychopath. So my sympathy has all but disappeared for Napoleon.
Why was Napoleon so awesome at winning battles? His second conquest of Vienna I believe, specifically the battle of Wagram, illustrates this best. For one thing, the French were much more united than the disparate groups welded together by his opponents. The Austrians could field a great army, but many of their soldiers could care less about fighting. Ironically this is illustrated best by the conscripts forwarded by Napoleon's "allies" - Italian and German troops uninterested in fighting for the glory of France. They broke and ran and had to be forced back into line by the bayonets of the Imperial Guard. Napoleon's opponents often faced the same problem, whereas the French rarely broke. To me that's the advantage of a large nation-state - the average soldier feels a responsibility to fight for his nation, whereas the average Romanian could care less about fighting for the Hapsburgs.
The other advantage Napoleon had was that he was a trained, professional officer (and possibly a genius). His opponent at Wagram was the brother of the Austrian emperor. He was a "military man" because feudal rulers were always the military leaders, not because he had any particular ability. At the same time, Mr. Schom states that he was the best of the Austrian generals! And in fact he did have a good battle plan at Wagram, but "lacked character and confidence" to see it through. Thus Napoleon won yet again. The age of meritocracy had begun.
Well, the least we can say is that Napoleon instituted many reforms. Maybe. Mr. Schom dwells not at all upon them, other than to say that they never had time to mature, since Napoleon marched over them with his armies.
One part of the chronicle that I found particularly interesting was the economic side. Napoleon wasted countless amounts (apparently the entire government budget for two years) on an attempt to invade England. Finally in disgust he had to abandon these plans and instead tried to bring the British down by closing European ports to them. The problem is, trade works both ways! If the British were hurt economically, well the Europeans were hurt by an equal amount! This embargo brought the French economy to its knees. Only the victory at Wagram and the loot stolen from Vienna saved it. The author points out twice that Napoleon, for all his brilliance, could never understand economics or business. This was particularly illustrated by the fact that he never even considered building a navy capable of disrupting the trading fleet from India to London. Burning that fleet would have bankrupted London and brought Albion to the bargaining table.
But he actually already HAD a signed peace treaty with England. All he had to so was endorse Tallyrand's work. But he rejected it. He never negotiated until he had won a military victory and had the upper hand at the negotiating table. Ultimately this united his enemies against him and brought him down.
For all his brilliance, IMO he failed to understand the nature of his advantage over his opponents - his leadership of a united nation-state. Thus he pushed his advantage past its limits. As the author points out, Bismarck was able to use the fear of France to weld together the Germanic states into the German nation-state, which led directly to not one not two but THREE German invasions of France. So 140 YEARS after the death of Napoleon, France was still paying the price for his insane dreams. It makes one wonder just exactly how Napoleon's legacy is regarded in France. On page 295 the author may state it outright: the truth is hushed up and glory is extolled at the expense of truth. Citizens are treated like children. This lack of integrity leads to an immature nation.
In the end, Napoleon died almost alone on a volcanic island, poisoned by someone who had wormed his way into Napoleon's will by virtue of being practically the only person still with him. Sad but fitting.
So read the book. It was enjoyable if long. I felt like I got most of the critical elements of the Napoleonic wars and his life.
I'm afraid many people excuse this by saying that "at least he failed while dreaming big." But again those dreams led to countless deaths and widespread destruction, such that the author concludes he was a psychopath. So my sympathy has all but disappeared for Napoleon.
Why was Napoleon so awesome at winning battles? His second conquest of Vienna I believe, specifically the battle of Wagram, illustrates this best. For one thing, the French were much more united than the disparate groups welded together by his opponents. The Austrians could field a great army, but many of their soldiers could care less about fighting. Ironically this is illustrated best by the conscripts forwarded by Napoleon's "allies" - Italian and German troops uninterested in fighting for the glory of France. They broke and ran and had to be forced back into line by the bayonets of the Imperial Guard. Napoleon's opponents often faced the same problem, whereas the French rarely broke. To me that's the advantage of a large nation-state - the average soldier feels a responsibility to fight for his nation, whereas the average Romanian could care less about fighting for the Hapsburgs.
The other advantage Napoleon had was that he was a trained, professional officer (and possibly a genius). His opponent at Wagram was the brother of the Austrian emperor. He was a "military man" because feudal rulers were always the military leaders, not because he had any particular ability. At the same time, Mr. Schom states that he was the best of the Austrian generals! And in fact he did have a good battle plan at Wagram, but "lacked character and confidence" to see it through. Thus Napoleon won yet again. The age of meritocracy had begun.
Well, the least we can say is that Napoleon instituted many reforms. Maybe. Mr. Schom dwells not at all upon them, other than to say that they never had time to mature, since Napoleon marched over them with his armies.
One part of the chronicle that I found particularly interesting was the economic side. Napoleon wasted countless amounts (apparently the entire government budget for two years) on an attempt to invade England. Finally in disgust he had to abandon these plans and instead tried to bring the British down by closing European ports to them. The problem is, trade works both ways! If the British were hurt economically, well the Europeans were hurt by an equal amount! This embargo brought the French economy to its knees. Only the victory at Wagram and the loot stolen from Vienna saved it. The author points out twice that Napoleon, for all his brilliance, could never understand economics or business. This was particularly illustrated by the fact that he never even considered building a navy capable of disrupting the trading fleet from India to London. Burning that fleet would have bankrupted London and brought Albion to the bargaining table.
But he actually already HAD a signed peace treaty with England. All he had to so was endorse Tallyrand's work. But he rejected it. He never negotiated until he had won a military victory and had the upper hand at the negotiating table. Ultimately this united his enemies against him and brought him down.
For all his brilliance, IMO he failed to understand the nature of his advantage over his opponents - his leadership of a united nation-state. Thus he pushed his advantage past its limits. As the author points out, Bismarck was able to use the fear of France to weld together the Germanic states into the German nation-state, which led directly to not one not two but THREE German invasions of France. So 140 YEARS after the death of Napoleon, France was still paying the price for his insane dreams. It makes one wonder just exactly how Napoleon's legacy is regarded in France. On page 295 the author may state it outright: the truth is hushed up and glory is extolled at the expense of truth. Citizens are treated like children. This lack of integrity leads to an immature nation.
In the end, Napoleon died almost alone on a volcanic island, poisoned by someone who had wormed his way into Napoleon's will by virtue of being practically the only person still with him. Sad but fitting.
So read the book. It was enjoyable if long. I felt like I got most of the critical elements of the Napoleonic wars and his life.
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November 28, 2019I found Schom’s negative opinion of Napoleon very persuasive, although that’s probably not surprising because I leaned that way before reading the book! I have always been troubled by the tendency in history to portray such conquerors so positively. I accept that Napoleon was very good at fighting battles and campaigning, but so many people suffered and died because he wanted to conquer pretty much all of Europe. And in the end, what did he accomplish? Very little, it seems to me. France ended up just about where it was when his reign began, but with millions of lives lost all over Europe, and the expenditure of enormous sums of money. I fail to understand why a mass murderer like him—besides all the lives lost in pointless wars of conquest, Schom gave many examples of his cruelty—is still viewed as a hero in France.
There was at least one significant positive that came out of Napoleon’s time, however: the Napoleonic Code, which as I understand it have influenced the legal systems in many countries in both Europe and other parts of the world. I’m surprised that there isn’t more in the book about this. They are mentioned briefly on page 293, but I didn’t find anything other than that, nor did I find an entry about the Codes in the index. Surely the subject warrants more attention than this, particularly when there is so much detail (more than I cared for) about so many of the battles. I think Schom can be fairly criticized for not emphasizing this more. Are there other positive aspects of Napoleon’s reign that he didn’t include?
The book also contains numerous other errors and omissions, although to be fair, mistakes are inevitable in a volume of this size. Still, there were quite a number of things I noticed that bothered me. Here are just a few examples:
In chapter 7, about the Egyptian campaign, Schom doesn’t explain how the French were able to defeat the Mamelukes, their main organized opponent. On page 123 he mentions that the French “easily won” the battle of Shubrakhit, despite being outnumbered, but doesn’t say how. I had to consult another volume, The Encyclopedia of Military History (Dupuy and Dupuy, Second Revised Edition, 1986, page 688) to learn that the Mamelukes were “courageous horsemen unaccustomed to organized modern warfare.”
The kidnapping and execution of the duc d’Enghien: Schom refers to it briefly in chapter 21 in a way that suggested it has already been covered earlier in the book, but it wasn’t. I strongly suspect an account of the incident was left out by mistake; it seems too important to just be referred to obliquely. There is a lengthy Wikipedia article about the incident that says the execution “shocked the aristocracy of Europe,” that “Tsar Alexander I of Russia was especially alarmed, and decided to curb Napoleon’s power.” So it seems like a fairly significant event.
Napoleon’s epilepsy: there are only two mentions of this in the book, in chapters 24 and 31, even though in Appendix B Schom comments that his “epileptic attacks continued throughout his adult life,” and “I have recorded a few such instances to indicate their gravity.” Two is not “a few,” and if this was so important there should have been more about it in the text.
In chapter 25, describing the Jena- Auerstädt campaign, Schom refers to the French army as being “a nominal force totaling little more than 200,000 men.” In that same paragraph, after listing several other groups of soldiers (along with their numbers) that joined Napoleon, adding to the overall size of the army, he said that now “Napoleon could count on just under 100,000 men.” (both from middle of page 425) So he started with around 200,000, added several other groups of men, and ended up with about 100,000? I scratched my head trying to figure out how this could be, and finally came to the realization that the initial reference to 200,000 should have been 20,000. This is admittedly nit-picking, but if one is going to include such details about numbers of soldiers the figures should at least add up!
I have probably concentrated too much on negatives in these notes. I did enjoy reading the book, and learned a lot about Napoleon in the process. And, as I said at the beginning, I agree with Schom’s overall assessment of the man’s character, even though it was rather one-sided. I would like to read further to get a more balanced view of Napoleon and his era.
There was at least one significant positive that came out of Napoleon’s time, however: the Napoleonic Code, which as I understand it have influenced the legal systems in many countries in both Europe and other parts of the world. I’m surprised that there isn’t more in the book about this. They are mentioned briefly on page 293, but I didn’t find anything other than that, nor did I find an entry about the Codes in the index. Surely the subject warrants more attention than this, particularly when there is so much detail (more than I cared for) about so many of the battles. I think Schom can be fairly criticized for not emphasizing this more. Are there other positive aspects of Napoleon’s reign that he didn’t include?
The book also contains numerous other errors and omissions, although to be fair, mistakes are inevitable in a volume of this size. Still, there were quite a number of things I noticed that bothered me. Here are just a few examples:
In chapter 7, about the Egyptian campaign, Schom doesn’t explain how the French were able to defeat the Mamelukes, their main organized opponent. On page 123 he mentions that the French “easily won” the battle of Shubrakhit, despite being outnumbered, but doesn’t say how. I had to consult another volume, The Encyclopedia of Military History (Dupuy and Dupuy, Second Revised Edition, 1986, page 688) to learn that the Mamelukes were “courageous horsemen unaccustomed to organized modern warfare.”
The kidnapping and execution of the duc d’Enghien: Schom refers to it briefly in chapter 21 in a way that suggested it has already been covered earlier in the book, but it wasn’t. I strongly suspect an account of the incident was left out by mistake; it seems too important to just be referred to obliquely. There is a lengthy Wikipedia article about the incident that says the execution “shocked the aristocracy of Europe,” that “Tsar Alexander I of Russia was especially alarmed, and decided to curb Napoleon’s power.” So it seems like a fairly significant event.
Napoleon’s epilepsy: there are only two mentions of this in the book, in chapters 24 and 31, even though in Appendix B Schom comments that his “epileptic attacks continued throughout his adult life,” and “I have recorded a few such instances to indicate their gravity.” Two is not “a few,” and if this was so important there should have been more about it in the text.
In chapter 25, describing the Jena- Auerstädt campaign, Schom refers to the French army as being “a nominal force totaling little more than 200,000 men.” In that same paragraph, after listing several other groups of soldiers (along with their numbers) that joined Napoleon, adding to the overall size of the army, he said that now “Napoleon could count on just under 100,000 men.” (both from middle of page 425) So he started with around 200,000, added several other groups of men, and ended up with about 100,000? I scratched my head trying to figure out how this could be, and finally came to the realization that the initial reference to 200,000 should have been 20,000. This is admittedly nit-picking, but if one is going to include such details about numbers of soldiers the figures should at least add up!
I have probably concentrated too much on negatives in these notes. I did enjoy reading the book, and learned a lot about Napoleon in the process. And, as I said at the beginning, I agree with Schom’s overall assessment of the man’s character, even though it was rather one-sided. I would like to read further to get a more balanced view of Napoleon and his era.
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