My friend Kevin recommended this book to me when I asked him for a book about Napoleon. This is one of the last books I listened to while I was still commuting to work and before the pandemic really kicked off.

I don’t know a lot about Napoleon or much about what was going on in Europe during that time because, frankly, it’s a gaping hole in my education.

As this is the only book about Napoleon I’ve read, I don’t have anything to compare it to. That said, I found this to be a very informative biography. I only had a sketchy idea of the French political circumstances surrounding Napoleon and his rise to power, and this really helped me understand how he became one of the most notorious rulers in the history of France/Europe. Further, I read that author Andrew Roberts was able to take advantage of a recently, never before published thirty-three thousand letter correspondence which further clarified Napoleon’s character. Ambitious, resentful of French rule over his home island of Corsica, he eventually joins the French military, rises through the ranks during the French Revolution, out foxes his co-conspirators in his coup d’etat, and became the Emperor of France. Easy.

This biography is 926 pages, I think the audiobook was about 35 hours. It was fascinating. I didn’t notice the length. It was a brilliant, fascinating book. As I understand, Napoleon understood the importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs (dictated in exile?) became some of the most popular books of the nineteenth century and this only enriches the narrative.

I very much enjoyed this biography. If you’re looking for a definitive biography, this is definitely the place to start.

Tagged: author: andrew roberts, books: napoleon: a life, genre: biography, genre: non-fiction