Cliff Notes For Napoleon Dummies

books:


	• Napoleon: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives) Paul Johnson, 2002 - 190 pages average customer review:based on 48 reviews view larger image
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Cliff Notes For Napoleon Dummies

I wanted to learn more about one of the most influential people of all time, but I didn't want to be intimidated by the subject either. A lot of the books on Napoleon looked long and dry. I found Paul Johnson's short (180 pages) accounting of Napoleon's extraordinary life just the thing. I was fascinated by all he'd accomplished, good and bad, and left wanting more. I look at this book as an appitizer for the larger subject ahead, should I feel like gorging.

Slim Recap

I found this book to be a useful introduction to one of history's most infamous icons. It is to be enjoyed as a vast overview of Napoleon's life, not as an in-depth account.

The portion of the book I found most interesting was Johnson's theory regarding how Napoleon breathed nationalist life into the Germans. Until then, the Holy Roman Empire structure kept in balance a potentially dangerous people. When Napoleon turned away their talents from art and scholarship and towards military organization, the consequences were felt for the next 125 years.

This book was not dazzling in style but was still an interesting read.

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Napoleon a short history

This is a very readable brief history of Napoleon that provides useful insight to those of us who are not Napoleonic scholars. I do not share the bias expressed by some reviewers that Johnson is too negative in his portrayal of Napoleon. I think he rightly points out Napoleon's brilliance as a tactician in war. He also acknowledges the artful manner in which Napoleon established subservient regimes (usually headed by one of his relatives) as a way to control large areas of Europe without leaving behind massive standing armies.

Napoleon loved war and power. In spite of his rise to leadership as a byproduct of the French Revolution, to try to paint him as an enlightened ruler and not as a dictator would deny the historical record of his behavior.

I recommend this book as a fun and informative read.

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Napoleon - Excellent Survey

If you want a short and well researched overview this is it. Not long on battles, strategy, etc.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

A bestselling historian?s vigorous and searching biography of the towering figure who cast his shadow over two centuries

In an ideal pairing of author and subject, the magisterial historian Paul Johnson offers a vivid look at the life of the strategist, general, and dictator who conquered much of Europe. Following Napoleon from the barren island of Corsica to his early training in Paris, from his meteoric victories and military dictatorship to his exile and death, Johnson examines the origins of his ferocious ambition. In Napoleon?s quest for power, he sees a realist unfettered by loyalty or ideology; in his violent legacy, a model for the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. Napoleon is dramatic testimony to a single individual?s ability to work his will on history.

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