The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte

Acclaimed historian, scholar, and author Alan Schom offers the most comprehensive portrait ever of Napoleon Bonaparte, "the scourge of Europe" and France's greatest hero, in this remarkably ambitious and compulsively readable biography. Based on over a decade of exhaustive research, Schom illuminates Napoleon's significant economic and social reforms, his reorganization of the French government, and the tempestuous impact of his personal life on his political decisions.

Napoleon Bonaparte covers every aspect of l'Empereur's life and career, from his childhood on Corsica to his dramatic rise to the throne of France, his campaigns of conquest, and his final crushing defeat at Waterloo and death in exile on St. Helena. Schom's lively and accessible text is generously illustrated with halftones and maps, and features startling new insights about Napoleon's key aides, ministers, and generals.

Schom portrays Napoleon with candor, exalting his ambition and undeniable genius, while also addressing his dark side – his ego, his failures and frailties, and the misery caused by his years of warfare across Europe. Powerful, dramatic, colorful, and impossible to put down, Napoleon Bonaparte is a biography as complex, challenging, and fascinating as the legend himself.

Filling a remarkable gap, this biography offers the most complete picture ever of the "scourge of Europe" and France's greatest hero. Schom's exhaustive research illuminates Napoleon's important economic and social reforms, his reorganization of the French government, and the impact of his tempestuous personal life on his political decisions.

From his childhood on Corsica to his dramatic rise to the throne of France, his campaigns of conquest, and his final defeat and death in exile, Schom's lively and accessible text covers every aspect of l'Empereur's life and career. Generously illustrated with halftones and maps, the book features startling new insights about Napoleon's key aides, ministers, and generals.

With candor, Schom exalts Napoleon's ambition and undeniable genius, while also addressing his dark side – his ego, his failures and frailties, and the misery caused by his years of warfare across Europe. Powerful, dramatic, colorful, and impossible to put down, this biography is as complex, challenging, and fascinating as the legend itself.

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