Napoleon

The Man Behind the Myth

By: Adam Zamoyski

Narrated by: Leighton Pugh

Length: 27 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

A landmark new biography that presents the man behind the many myths. The first writer in English to go back to the original European sources, Adam Zamoyski’s portrait of Napoleon is historical biography at its finest.

Napoleon inspires passionately held and often conflicting visions. Was he a godlike genius, a romantic avatar, a megalomaniac monster, a compulsive warmonger or just a nasty little dictator?

Whilst he displayed elements of these traits at certain times, Napoleon was none of these things. He was a man and, as Adam Zamoyski presents him in this landmark biography, a rather ordinary one at that. He exhibited some extraordinary qualities during some phases of his life, but it is hard to credit genius to a general who presided over the worst (and self-inflicted) disaster in military history and who single-handedly destroyed the great enterprise he and others had toiled so hard to construct. A brilliant tactician, he was no strategist.

But nor was Napoleon an evil monster. He could be selfish and violent, but there is no evidence of him wishing to inflict suffering gratuitously. His motives were mostly praiseworthy and his ambition no greater than that of contemporaries such as Alexander I of Russia, Wellington, Nelson, Metternich, Blucher, Bernadotte and many more. What made his ambition exceptional was the scope it was accorded by circumstance.

Adam Zamoyski strips away the lacquer of prejudice and places Napoleon the man within the context of his times. In the 1790s, a young Napoleon entered a world at war, a bitter struggle for supremacy and survival with leaders motivated by a quest for power and by self-interest. He did not start this war but dominated his life and continued, with one brief interruption, until his final defeat in 1815.

Based on primary sources in many European languages, this magnificent audiobook examines how Napoleone Buonaparte, the boy from Corsica, became ‘Napoleon’, how he achieved what he did and how it came about that he undid it. It does not justify or condemn but seeks instead to understand Napoleon’s extraordinary trajectory.

©2018 Adam Zamoyski (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Always elegant in style and original in analysis. Zamoyski, a master of the sources and of the culture and politics that created his subject, produces a fresh, nuanced, beautifully written, gripping, and outstanding biography of Napoleon that reveals him to be a triumph of luck and accident as much as the invincible genius of the legend." (Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of The Romanovs and Jerusalem: the Biography)

"Napoleon is an out and out masterpiece and a joy to read." (Sir Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad)

"A lifetime’s diligent research and profound thinking about Napoleon and his times has gone into this hugely readable, highly enjoyable and well-balanced biography. Zamoyski is at the top of his game as a biographer." (Andrew Roberts, Visiting Professor, Department of War Studies, King’s College, London)

Outstanding life story

Missing a lot of details about Napoleon, and being one of the most well known names in the history of man kind, for some reason and without knowing why.. I admired the man. I came to know through this book his genius, ingenuity, strengths and weakness, his courage and fears and more evident than all the previously mentioned, his insecurities.. an ordinary man who achieved everything he did by hard work, there is no special secret to success.. only hard work. Had he chosen the people around him more wisely, Napoleon and France would have been a model society and a super power of peace. Also, the inclusion of all his family members in distinguished roles in his Empire was a card that he should not have played. Visionary and clever but yet, his extreme obsession towards Josephine escaped me; I never read or heard of a love of a woman so deep to the point of describing it as a sick passion, than this of Napoleon towards Josephine. I can’t understand the relationship and why was it so important to Napoleon from which, he drew strength and confidence. Maybe it is my personal deduction that after he abandon Josephine, with the pressure of his family and aids, his downfall begun. Interesting read and highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn mire about Europe, France during the 17th and 18th century.

Better than Game of Thrones

Throughout this book I kept thinking it would make a brilliant series (although inevitably ruined by "dramatization"). Zamoyski fulfills his subtitle promise of making Napoleon human, as well as everyone around him. It's the best kind of informative well-written nonfiction - while raising the bar for the best kind of character-rich cohesive-plot fiction.