 |
 |
 |
|
The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte by Robert Asprey
Ever since his untimely death at age 51 on the forlorn and windswept island of St. Helena in 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte has been too often the victim of a biographical revisionism that treats him as either demi-god or devil incarnate.
In The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, the first volume of this two volume, cradle to grave biography, destined to be the standard work on Napoleon for generations, Robert Asprey instead treats him as a human being, writing of him as a child, a man, a general and military genius, a lover, a husband, a king, an emperor, a father, a conqueror, a statesman, and finally, a prisoner -- a swift-moving, intensely dramatic saga measured in terms not of our time but of his.
Asprey's central and telling argument is that Napoleon was not the father of chaos, as his detractors would have us believe. Rather, he was heir to chaos both at home and abroad. A child of the French Revolution, he grew to be its master, exploiting the national will for what he believed to be the national good, converting the surging passions of 30 million people into an irresistible force to challenge and often topple archaic thrones supported by a humanity trapped in feudal superstition and misery...
CONDITION: Hard Cover with DJ, light wear to DJ, book in VG+ condition except for small stain inside front cover - all else very clean, 580 pages including the index, published 2000.
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
