Napoleon: A Life

By: Andrew Roberts

Published November 4th 2014 by Viking (first published October 2nd 2014)

Category: Biography

Pages: 926 pages

ISBN: 9780670025329

Description:
The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of WarÑwinner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography and theÊGrand Prix of the Fondation NapoleonÊÊ

Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times.

Andrew RobertsÕs Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of NapoleonÕs thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century.

An award-winning historian, Roberts traveled to fifty-three of NapoleonÕs sixty battle sites, discovered crucial new documents in archives, and even made the long trip by boat to St. Helena. He is as acute in his understanding of politics as he is of military history. Here at last is a biography worthy of its subject: magisterial, insightful, beautifully written, by one of our foremost historians.