Napoleon: A Biography

by Frank McLynn (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $4.19

  Napoleon Bonaparte's character and achievements have always divided critics and commentators. In this compelling new biography Frank McLynn draws on the most recent scholarship and throws a brilliant light on this most paradoxical of men - as military leader, lover and emperor. Tracing Napoleon's extraordinary career, Mc Lynn examines the Promethean legend from the Corsican roots, through the years of the French Revolution and the military triumphs, to the coronation in 1804 and ultimate defeat and imprisonment. Napoleon the man emerges as an even more fascinating character than previously imagined, and McLynn brilliantly reveals the extent to which he was both existential hero and plaything of Fate; mathematician and mystic; intellectual giant and moral pygmy; Great Man and deeply flawed human being.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1997

  $4.19

  McLynn's life of Napoleon traces his extraordinary career, as well as the promethean legend he bequeathed, from his Corsican roots and the influential Bonaparte dynasty, through the years of the French Revolution and his military triumphs to his coronation in 1804 and his ultimate defeat and imprisonment. Particular emphasis is given to Napoleon's military genius and the astonishing feats of his Grande Armee, which radically altered the political shape of Europe, as well as to his civil achievements, as ruler of France. All means justified the end of Napoleonic ambition, and McLynn is adept at interpreting the psycholgy that motivated Napoleon's genius, his errors and his stormy relationships with women.