The Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte

"The Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte" is the second volume on the life of Napoleon by Robert Asprey. Volume One was entitled "The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte" covering his life from his birth in 1769 on Corsica to his victory at Austerlitz in 1085. That volume ends with Napoleon as the crowned emperor. All is well with the emperor! In this final volume we see Napoleon meet his Waterloo as he is soundly defeated by Lord Wellington and the allies on June 18, 1815. Napoleon, who had earlier escaped from captivity on Elba where he had been exiled since his defeat at the Battle of the Nations, spent the last six years of his life on the South Sea island of St. Helena. Here Napoleon spent six miserable years of ennui, physical ailments and relatively harsh treatment from his English captors. His disdain for the governor of the ilsand Hudson Lowe was mutual. A sad end for the man who had made the great nations of Europe live in fear of the Grande Armee's military juggernaut. Asprey briefly covers the major battles of this period. If you wish to study them in greater depth turn to David Chandler or John Elting's fine works on these huge and bloody confrontations. Asprey is good in superficially covering Napoleon's many amours including the sexy Marie Walewski of Poland as well as his second wife Marie of Austria. Napoleon divorced the unfaithful Josephine but loved her until her death in 1814. This book is a good introduction to the life and career of France's most famous political/military man. Napoleon was complex, hot-headed and a man who had trouble dealing with the hand played him by Madame Fate.This is a readable book. The maps included are minimal and poorly drawn. The period illustrations are well reproduced. It is a good book worthy to have a place on the bookshelves of miltary history buffs.

Robert Asprey has written an outstanding biography about one of the world's greatest (or infamous) leaders. Not drenched in military minutia or battlefield granularity, this 2nd volume presents a balanced and fair overview of the man and his leadership of France. Asprey's literary style is entertaining and brisk. If you're looking for a bio that'll provide you with a solid foundation about how Napolean impacted Europe and the World -- you can't go wrong here.

This is part two of the best biography of Napoleon that I have read. It is a focus on political and military history but does a decent job of covering the social aspects of napoleon's reforms. This book really focuses on the Napoleonic empire and its eventual fall. It also covers his return to power and does an excellent job of presenting the information clearly. The prose is well done and really makes for quick and interesting reading. This is a must have for anyone studying this era.

As an avid history buff I've searched over the years for a really good modern, readable and fair biography of Napoleon. I had big hopes with a number of "high profile" works in the past few years, but I found so many of them were written by English authors who were none too objective and went so far as to compare Napoleon to Hitler (e.g. Alistair Horne's terribly biased "How Far From Austerlitz" and even more biased work by Alan Schom). That comparison is simply ridiculous -- no one talks today of "Hitler-Kulture," he left no legacy but murder and madness. Napoleon on the other hand left numerous infrastrucural improvements, the 'Code Napoleon' judicial system largely still in use not just in France but in dozens of countries worldwide, the list goes on. He didn't simply "grab for power" as many would have you believe, it was the French Revolution and because of his immense popularity throughout France he was -invited- to be Consul in an effort to end the chaos and Terrors. All this and more is nicely characterized in Mr. Asprey's work. As the author makes so clear, much of what is commonly known about Napoleon is taken out of context, "history written by the victors" as it were -- of course the English demonize Napoleon, and he hated them just the same, but in the book you find that it was not Napoleon who started one war after another in Europe but in fact it was usually the English as the "bad guy," bankrolling and instigating 7, yes SEVEN, coalitions against Napoleon, all but the last of which they lost (and consequently lost so much of Europe). I was drawn to this biography of Napoleon because I had previously read the author's Frederick the Great biography, which I counted as the second-best biography I've ever read (after Robert K. Massey's Pulitzer-winning Peter the Great). He did not disappoint -- this is a truly great work, sure there are probably some areas here and there one might like to know more about, one reviewer here called his treatment "superficial," but again, let's be fair, Napoloeon's life is vast, Mr. Asprey gives two very full action-packed volumes for a terrific overview. I agree with another reviewer here, take this one plus the Vincent Cronin and you have a pretty darn good feel for Napoleon and his times.

For those who read history with an eye for understanding the human traits that so enrage or encourage us all, reading the second book of Asprey's work on Napoleon reminds us what the elusive term "leadership" really is. For those who were taught that leadership is "not a personal or individual thing but rather a relationship and a process whereby people influence one another concerning real changes they intend for the organization or a society" this latest book should serve as a wake-up call. Leadership in Napoleon's time (and today?) is a personal and individual thing. Once again Asprey has meticulously researched a side of Napoleon vis a vis his leadership roles as simultaneous imperial administrator and military commander, with such incredible insight that the reader is forced to rethink all that he or she thought about this incredibly complex man. Most telling, and most prescient of all the chapters, are the end ones describing how the many nation entities of the European continent, along with England, waged incessant battle until Napoleon was doomed to failure. States Asprey, "Why did (Napoleon) persist in his discredited strategy (moving ahead without reinforcement/resupply)? The short answer is because he did not believe that it 'was' discredited. We are dealing here with disparate and complex factors working on a strange amalgam of past and present caught in the fearful coils of the arrogance of ingnorance, trapped in his belief of enemy impotence and cowardice, failing to recognize that his once omnipotent and beautiful army had weakened and withered into halting old age, that the political elixir which he had brewed to save Europe from itself had turned poisonously bitter and impotent...That was the real key to his disjointed actions and spurious decisions and it is at once terribly sad, yet in another sense strangely noble --- a defeated man refusing to accept defeat." And contributing to Napoleon's defeat (and education) was the war he was forced to contend with in Spain against terrorists and guerrillas. Those forces wore Napoleon's army and lessening resources down, weakening them to the point they could not be used in future battles. Napoleon loathed terrorism and guerilla tactics, but in the end, was forced to use them to wear down opposition forces. Asprey makes nearly two hundred years of history as relevant as if it had happened on 9/11/01. It is now up to the greatest military and economic power on Earth to deal with disparate and complex factors and not get caught in the fearful coils of the arrogance of ignorance. Asprey reminds our leadership how and why.