Product Description

Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power was neither inevitable nor smooth; it was full of mistakes, wrong turns and pitfalls. During his formative years his identity was constantly shifting, his character ambiguous and his intentions often ill-defined. As a young and inexperienced general he covered up his defeats and exaggerated his victories, never hesitating to blame others for his failures and failings. He was, however, highly ambitious, and it was this ruthless drive that advanced his career and his social status. This book examines the extraordinary evolution of Napoleon's character and the means by which at the age of thirty he became head of the most powerful country in Europe: from his Corsican origins to his French education, from his melancholy youth to his involvement in Corsican political faction-fighting during the Revolution, and from his flirtation with the radicals of the French Revolution to his first military campaigns in Italy and Egypt - and the political-military coup that brought him to power in 1799. Philip Dwyer's expansive study sheds new light on the darker aspects of Napoleon's character - his brooding obsessions and potential for violence - and also his passionate nature: his loves, his ability to inspire others and the capacity to realise his visionary ideas. One of the first truly modern politicians, Napoleon skilfully fashioned the image of himself that laid the foundation of the legend that endures to this day. Fresh, innovative and broad in scope, this outstanding biography mints anew one of the great figures of modern history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #287232 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 672 pages

Andrew Roberts
'A superb work of both scholarship and literature. Dwyer leaves the reader pining for his second volume'

Adam Zamoyski, Sunday Times
`Remarkable ... a satisfying, psychologically convincing account of Napoleon's early years and ascent to power. Even-handed and authoritative, this fascinating and highly enjoyable book will be an eye opener even to those who think they know the subject well'

About the Author
Philip Dwyer studied in Perth (Australia), Berlin and Paris, where he was a student of France's pre-eminent Napoleonic scholar, Jean Tulard. He has published widely on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, and Is the editor of Napoleon and Europe, the author of Talleyrand, and has co-edited Napoleon and His Empire: Europe, 1804-1814. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and is working on the second volume of his biography of Napoleon. Napoleon:The Path to Power, 1769-1799 is also shortlisted for The Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

Customer Reviews

O no, not another one.......but do buy and read this!!!
The first part of the title of this review is what I thought when I saw this book: Strewth! not another great big biography of the Emperor. It never seems to end, does it, and neither do these books. Now here's another one of them. This one by professor Dwyer, a full 600 pages. And that's only the first volume.
Still, I had to buy it, of course, to add to my growing collection of books on Napoleon and his era, and while I forked out the money and took it home I cursed the bonapartistic demon that controls my mind and makes my buy all those books.
You name it, I've got it and read it: Steven Englund (very good), J. M. Thompson (good), Georges Lefebvre (one of the best), Frank McLynn (quite good), Alan Schom ((boneybashing on a grand scale, boring after the first 200 pages), David Chandler (the "Campaigns", jolly good), John Elting (Grande Armee, very good) Adolphe Thiers (19th century hagiography), Jean Morvan (early 20th century books on Napoleon's army, absolutely unsurpassed) Jean Tulard, Thierry Lentz (the two foremost moders french napoleonic scholars, Johannes Willms (excellent, though as yet only in german) and many, many more.
I didn't really expect all that much of this book, being one of so many biographies. But professor Dwyer manages to tell Napoleon's life in an engaging, yet scholarly manner and provides quite a few new insights, angles and point of view. He has included much of the latest modern scholarship on the Emperor and thus produces a view on Napoleon with a different slant than most biographies which appeared in the last 25 years.

Well worth the money, well worth the effort and well worth the time. I will be looking out for the second volume.

Solid but lacks fizz
It's tough for anyone to write a biography of Napoleon because so very many people have already done it before, making it hard to make a new book distinct and different. Philip Dwyer broadly succeeds in doing this, but his book remains only a partial success all the same.

Indeed, it was the most obviously 'new' thing Dwyer has to say about Napoleon that I found amongst the least interesting aspects of the book. Essentially, Dwyer portrays Napoleon as what today we would term a spin doctor par excellence. OK, fine, Napoleon did use art and newspapers and proclamations to portray himself in a particular, very favourable light, but then he was a political figure, so what do you expect? That's not meant as a general slur at politicians, rather as an observation that people in political life have always 'spun' things since time immemorial. Sure, Napoleon was particularly good at it, but one almost gets the impression from Dwyer's book that he practically invented the art of spin. This overstates the case and was, I felt, a rather weak pillar upon which to build a biography of the French emperor.

Fortunately, in spite of the above, there is much in Dwyer's book to commend it. He broadly manages to be fair and even-handed, although one does sense that, if pushed, Dwyer would put himself in the Bonaparte detractor camp. Some sections are very enjoyable, like the parts dealing with Bonaparte's relationship with Josephine or much of the section on the Egyptian expedition. The book is also easy to read and never becomes bogged down. That said, I felt the writing lacked real sparkle and excitement. Napoleon's life must be one of the most entertaining stories in history, yet Dwyer's account of it was a bit, well, flat. This is not a boring book by any means, but neither is it a real page turner and I can recall no sections that made the pulse race. Perhaps that's partly a personal taste issue, as much of the most exciting writing on Napoleon, I find, concerns his military exploits, and they are rather thinly covered in this book. Some readers will doubtless be glad of a Bonaparte biography that is light on war, but others, like myself, will wish Dwyer had spent a bit more time on Napoleon's early campaigns, especially those in Italy.

Overall, this is a worthy enough book and I certainly don't regret spending the time it took to read it, yet at the same time it left me feeling somewhat disappointed and unsatisfied. Hopefully the second volume of the biography will be more exciting.

Sometimes a Bit Dry, But Never Dull
Last August I flew across the Atlantic to meet my sister, who lives in London. We shopped around for a couple days, then flew to Paris to hang out for a month. While waiting for our flight out, I was sitting next to a man who was reading this book.

"Good?" I asked.

"Not my cup of tea," he said. "It was a gift from a friend."

"I studied him in school," I said.

"Got something to trade," he said.

"I do, but you might not like it."

"Try me." He handed over the book like he couldn't get rid of it fast enough and I handed my copy of the very good and very hefty Isaac Asimov's "Guide to Shakespeare". He wondered about who was getting the worst of the bargain as he was apparently less fond of the Bard then Napoleon. It had been my intention of digesting Asimov's tome a bit at a time, but the book was too heavy for both my body and my mind. I'd clearly bitten off more then I could chew.

I started Mr. Dwyer's book on the plane and saw right away his Napoleon wasn't anything like the man I studied in school, not a bit like the hero of the films I'd seen either. This Napoleon was apparently a master spin doctor, coloring all his dispatches to make him look greater than he was. He even bought a couple newspapers to further his reputation. He turned himself into a hero for his time.

He was also brutal. A mass killer, maybe not as bad as Hitler or Stalin, but he was killer nevertheless and I don't mean he killed gloriously in battle. He sacked towns, order the deaths of women who'd been raped by his men, killed soldiers who'd surrendered, not a nice man Mr. Dwyer's Napoleon.

But a fascinating man he was. I didn't read the book in one or two sittings, like I do a good novel, but I came back to it a bit at a time during that August in Paris and by the time we got around to visiting his tomb, I felt I had a pretty good measure of the man, even though I was only about halfway through the book at the time.

Insecure as a youth, he grew out of that when he started to taste power and as I was really getting into the book at about page 425. My sister and I had just finished a very expensive dinner on the Champs-Elysees and were jaywalking across that very wide street when someone shouted. A car was bearing down on us, we ran, I was almost across when I slipped and fell and Mr. Dwyer's book, which I'd been carrying, went flying, skidding on the road like a hockey puck and it found the goal, well not the goal exactly, but a storm drain. Gone, the book was gone and I hadn't finished.

No problem, I figured I'd get a copy when I got back, but to my chagrin it hadn't been released in the States, so imagine how lucky I felt when I was offered a chance to get an advanced reader's copy many months later and months before the American release.

I've finished the book now and if, like me, you're a history buff, then I believe this is a must read. A little dry at times, but never dull. Mr. Dwyer has done his research and he's got a hundred and five page bibliography written in small print at the end of the book to prove it. It's a good book and in my opinion I did good when I swapped Napoleon Bonaparte for William Shakespeare.