Reviews (1)

Full of fantastic information!
Desmond Seward is a popularizer, and this book has no footnotes, but it is a fantastic book and is fast reading. It tells the almost unbelievable story of Napolean and his siblings: Joseph (1768-1844), Lucien (1775-1840), Elisa (1777-1820), Louis (1778-1846), Pauline (1780-1824), Caroline (1782-1839) and Jerome (1784-1860). What an immoral lot--one is shocked by the sexual excess thay all indulged in. This is a good book, with a genealogical table and telling what became of them and their descendants. But the way Seward writes, it is not serious history. But it is fun to read, and you will be amazed by how quickly Napolean and his family assumed the vices of royalty. ... Read more

Book Description

The text (with the exception of a few bracketed passages) is derived entirely from Napoleon's own words, written and spoken.What truth this book conveys is not to be sought according to those rules for the treatment of historical documents which it avowedly contravenes, but in such psychological illumination of a great career and character as the method employed has rendered possible.For objectively Napoleon rarely, if ever, speaks the truth; yet subjectively how can he speak otherwise? ... Read more

Book Description

Napoleon and Antoine-Jean Gros first met in 1796 in Italy where the young French painter was working as a portraitist and attempting to recover from the upheavals of the French Revolution.The meeting changed Gros’s life.Soon thereafter, he was making paintings ---Napoleon Visiting the Battlefield of Eylau, Napoleon Visiting the Plague-Stricken in Jaffa, among others---that commemorated "the Corsican upstart’s" great deeds and have come to be regarded as masterpieces of both art and propaganda.

After the Revolution by David O’Brien is the first account in over a century to traceGros’s meteoric career, from its beginnings in Paris in David’s studio to its Napoleonic successes and end in a mysterious suicide.Drawing on letters from the artist to his mother, many of which O’Brien discovered, this book gives the reader a compelling account of the opportunities and conflicts faced by a brilliant, sensitive artist working for an increasingly autocratic regime.

Highly original, O’Brien’s book weaves a comprehensive biography of Gros together with a history of the institutional machinery through which Napoleon both encouraged and regulated the arts.Here again, O’Brien introduces the reader to new documents, this time records from the Archives Nationales that illuminate the personalities and policies directing the representation of Napoleon and his era.

The many color illustrations in After the Revolution enable the reader to follow O’Brien’s s informative analysis of the mixing of fact and fiction in such famed paintings as the Battlefield of Eylau.Written in a clear, engaging style, this book will be of great interest to art historians, students of political and military historians, and all those fascinated by Napoleon. ... Read more

Book Description

Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler:each put his mark on an era.In this study, Seward examines the lives of these remarkable men and demonstrates the striking parallels between their careers and their roles in shaping the destiny of Europe.Napoleon and Hitler were both outsiders of humble origins.Both struggled to be accepted by society - Napoleon finding success in the military, Hitler finding self-esteem through a fringe political group.And, once they achieved power, the conduct of their political and military careers proved improbably similar.For each man the grand design was the conquest of Europe, and for each the dream would turn into a nightmare in a disastrous Russian winter campaign.NAPOLEON AND HITLER shows, in a remarkable way, how history can repeat itself

"Well composed, interesting, and with solidly founded conclusions."(Amazon.com) ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Excellent anlaysis
The great and prolific people of the world are always defined by the times in which they live, a fact which we cannot escape. To understand Hitler one must understand what came before, especially the legacy that Napoleon left upon the European continent. While a straight comparison/contrast of the two leaders is a core theme in this analysis, Desmond Seward transcends that, attacking the interrelational cause-and-effect relationship between the two conquerors. The enormous complexity of these two personalities, of which numerous, exhaustive studies have been made, preclude Seward from exploring each too deeply in one text. His exploration, as with most works of this nature, raises more questions than it solves, but he, quite thoroughly, includes direct references to his sources and admirably provides the reader directions for further study. While his comparison could use more focus on the thematic analysis rather than simply event-related parallels, it was well composed and quite interesting with solidly founded conclusions. ... Read more

Book Description

John S. C. Abbott (1805-1877) wrote "The History of Napoleon Bonaparte" in 1855 when he was 50.Historian and clergyman, the Maine native graduated from Bowdoin College class of 1825, which included Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"The history of Napoleon has often been written by his enemies," declares Abbott in the opening of his preface. "This narrative is from the pen of one who reveres and loves the Emperor."He describes the plan for the work as a "plain narrative of what Napoleon did, with the explanations which he gave of his conduct, and with the record of such well-authenticated anecdotes and remarkable sayings as illustrate his character."Regarding this sources, he states, "every incident here recorded, and every remark attributed to Napoleon, are well authenticated." ... Read more

Book Description

John S. C. Abbott (1805-1877) wrote "The History of Napoleon Bonaparte" in 1855 when he was 50.Historian and clergyman, the Maine native graduated from Bowdoin College class of 1825, which included Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"The history of Napoleon has often been written by his enemies," declares Abbott in the opening of his preface. "This narrative is from the pen of one who reveres and loves the Emperor."He describes the plan for the work as a "plain narrative of what Napoleon did, with the explanations which he gave of his conduct, and with the record of such well-authenticated anecdotes and remarkable sayings as illustrate his character."Regarding this sources, he states, "every incident here recorded, and every remark attributed to Napoleon, are well authenticated." ... Read more

Book Description

John S. C. Abbott (1805-1877) wrote "The History of Napoleon Bonaparte" in 1855 when he was 50.Historian and clergyman, the Maine native graduated from Bowdoin College class of 1825, which included Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"The history of Napoleon has often been written by his enemies," declares Abbott in the opening of his preface. "This narrative is from the pen of one who reveres and loves the Emperor."He describes the plan for the work as a "plain narrative of what Napoleon did, with the explanations which he gave of his conduct, and with the record of such well-authenticated anecdotes and remarkable sayings as illustrate his character."Regarding this sources, he states, "every incident here recorded, and every remark attributed to Napoleon, are well authenticated." ... Read more

Reviews (1)

What has become of the world?
How can it be that this little artillery officer from Corsica changed the face of the world forever, but less than two hundred years after his death, there are no reviews of his memoirs. More books have been written about him than any other human being in existence, including Jesus Christ, but no one thinks to read the man's own words. His shadow once fell from the Atlantic to Moscow, from the North Sea to Egypt, and high school Honors World History classes cover him in the space of a single day. The world has become such now that were he alive today, I doubt he would want to conquer it--it is no longer worth the effort, no longer worth having. Napoleon filled Europe with widows and orphans, but the world of now does not even deserve a genius or a butcher of his caliber. ... Read more