Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleon Bonaparte, military genius, outstanding commander, l'Empereur, L'Homme du destin - The Man of Destiny. Napoleon was all these things, and many more. Through military inspiration, the ability to recognize and seize every opportunity, and a bit of luck, Napoleon became the emperor of France. Then, "breaking every military rule, he conquered Europe and changed the face of war forever, creating the first mass army - and the first mass graves." (Marrin inside cover) This biography is his story. When I hear "biography," I think "boring." But with this book, this is not the case. Marrin is able to tell the adventures of Napoleon and useful facts in a way where none of the parts are boring or lacking action at all. The biases I originally predicted are fairly accurate. This book is slightly biased towards how great of a mastermind Napoleon was. But, he really was a military genius, so you can barely even call it bias... This biography tells all about Napoleon's life in an exciting way. The prologue is excellent and well used: it tells the reader about when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France. This was unspeakable; every Emperor before him had been crowned by the chief priest of France. Some people hated him for his cocky action, others adored him for it. Chapter one shows the reader the harsh and poor life-style Napoleon had on his island home of Corsica. Born in 1769, he had to fight other, bigger kids all the time for food, toys, and family honor. In Corsica, family was everything. There would be family blood feuds that would last over generations, started by a petty argument. "Corsicans respected the family more than any law; more, it was said, than God Himself." (Marrin 7) These first few pages of the novel really show how determined and intelligent Napoleon really was. He came up from these harsh conditions on a small, shabby island, to rise through the ranks up to general at the young age of twenty-four. From there he would seize and overthrow the entire French government in its deepest time of peril. He once stated, "The most dangerous moment comes with victory." (Chew 1) After many good improvements to the French economy and laws, he set off on a conquest: a conquest to rule the world. He went on, through military genius, to conquer almost all of Europe, which was almost the whole "civilized world" at the time. But, greed and power got the better of him, of course. He overworked his troops and lost everything at the battle of Waterloo. It just goes to show that everyone, even L'Homme du destin, will make mistakes. I enjoyed this book, especially compared to other biographies. It's exciting and well-written content has the potential to keep you up through the night. I would recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in warfare, because Napoleon was one of the best. Albert Marrin did a good job of gathering interesting information and turning it into an action-packed biography.

This book was amazing! It captured his personal side, tempered and loony along with the side that everyone was supposed to see, perfect, superior, Napoleon! Albert Marrin had EVERYTHING. This was the best book I have read in a long time....... It went through his ups and downs, his birth to his death. Napoleon was such a exiting political figure anything ABOUT him has to be exiting, but this was a VERY, VERY good book. I would give it 100,000 stars if it was possible!

The book is a shockingly detailed account of the Napoleon as a person and as a conqueror. It is fairly presented and allows the reader to form an unbiased opinion about Napoleon during one of the most confusing and frightening periods in history.