Napoleons Family

Andrew Roberts' Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon's thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine.

Written with great energy and authority - and using the newly available personal archives of Napoleon himself - the first volume of a majestic two-part biography of the great French emperor and conqueror.

Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary of all human lives. In the space of just 20 years, from October 1795, when as a young artillery captain he cleared the streets of Paris of insurrectionists, to his final defeat at the (horribly mismanaged) battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power in a coup d'état, he ended the corruption and incompetence into which the revolution had descended.

After the bloody French Revolution, Emperor Napoleon’s power is absolute. When Marie-Louise, the 18-year-old daughter of the King of Austria, is told that the Emperor has demanded her hand in marriage, her father presents her with a terrible choice: marry the cruel, capricious Napoleon, leaving the man she loves and her home forever, or say no, and plunge her country into war. Marie-Louise knows what she must do, and she travels to France, determined to be a good wife despite Napoleon’s reputation. But lavish parties greet her in Paris, and at the extravagant French court, she finds many rivals for her husband’s affection....

Here is the famous Carnegie formula for money-making, based upon the Thirteen Proven Steps to Riches. It was organized through 25 years of research, in collaboration with more than 500 distinguished men of great wealth, who proved by their own achievements that this philosophy is practical.

When siblings Dan and Hayley Daley inherit their late grandmother's derelict Victorian farmhouse, it seems like a dream come true. All they have to do is fix the place up and sell it for a tidy profit! Except - as anyone who has renovated an old house knows - things are never that easy. The walls are rapidly crumbling around them, the architect is a certified lunatic, the budget is spiraling...and then there's the disturbingly intelligent cow to worry about.

The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.

David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility that Napoleon represented. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

Lesson XII, Concentration, teaches you how to focus your attention upon one subject at a time until you have worked out practical plans for mastering that subject. It will teach you how to ally yourself with others in such a manner that you may have the use of their entire knowledge to back you up in your own plans and purposes. It will give you a practical working knowledge of the forces around you, and show you how to harness and use these forces in furthering your own interests.

Lesson Eleven, Accurate Thinking is one of the important foundation stones of all enduring success. This lesson teaches you how to separate "facts" from mere "information." It teaches you how to organize known facts into two classes: the "important" and the "unimportant." It teaches you how to determine what is an "important" fact. It teaches you how to build definite working plans, in the pursuit of any calling, out of facts.

Napoleon Bonaparte's ascent to power was meteoric. Ever the outsider and regarded by many as an upstart, his extraordinary determination, courage, and tactical skill saw him rise from ordinary beginnings to become the greatest military commander of his age. A brigadier general by the age of 24, crowned Emperor of France by age 35, he had conquered most of the countries of Europe by the time he was 45.

Lesson XIV, Profiting by Failure, will teach you how to make stepping stones out of all of your past and future mistakes and failures. It will teach you the difference between "failure" and "temporary defeat", a difference which is very great and very important. It will teach you how to profit by your own failures and by the failures of other people.

Lesson XVI, Practicing the Golden Rule, will teach you how to make use of this great universal law of human conduct in such a manner that you may easily get harmonious co-operation from any individual or group of individuals. This lesson has nothing whatsoever to do with religion in any form, nor with sectarianism, nor have any of the other lessons of this course on the Law of Success.

In the autumn of 1940, four children meet on a train. Behind them is London, under heavy aerial attack; ahead of them is a ship bound for the safe shores of Canada. Arthur has promised his mother not to let his little brother, Philip, out of his sight. Pippa and Dora are on their own: polar opposites, brought together by the adventure of a lifetime. But disaster strikes mid-Atlantic, and in the chaos one of the children makes a choice that will determine the course of their lives forever.

Lesson XIII, Cooperation, will teach you the value of teamwork in all you do. In this lesson you will be taught how to apply the law of the "Master Mind" described in Lesson II. This lesson will show you how to co-ordinate your own efforts with those of others, in such a manner that friction, jealousy, strife, envy and cupidity will be eliminated. You will learn how to make use of all that other people have learned about the work in which you are engaged.

Lesson Ten, Pleasing Personality is the "fulcrum" on which you must place the "crow-bar" of your efforts, and when so placed, with intelligence, it will enable you to remove mountains of obstacles. This one lesson, alone, has made scores of Master Salesmen. It has developed leaders over night. It will teach you how to transform your personality so that you may adapt yourself to any environment, or to any other personality, in such a manner that you may easily dominate.

Lesson VIII, Self-Control, is the "balance wheel" with which you control your enthusiasm and direct it where you wish it to carry you. This lesson will teach you, in a most practical manner, to become "the master of your fate, the Captain of your Soul".

After the world crashed and civilisation crumbled, humanity descended into barbarism. Drake Qualland is a force for order. He travels the world righting wrongs and bringing justice to the people. When Drake finds a woman’s tortured body hanging from a bridge, he tightens his sword belt and determines to find her murderers.

Lesson XV, Tolerance, will teach you how to avoid the disastrous effects of racial and religious prejudices, which mean defeat for millions of people who permit themselves to become entangled in foolish argument over these subjects, thereby poisoning their own minds and closing the door to reason and investigation. This lesson is the twin sister of the one on Accurate Thought, for the reason that no one may become an Accurate Thinker without practicing tolerance.

Lesson I, The Master Mind: You Can Do It if You Believe You Can!, is a course on the fundamentals of success. Success is very largely a matter of adjusting one's self to the ever-varying and -changing environments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise.