Napoleon
The Man Behind the Myth
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Napoleon
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Narrated by:
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Leighton Pugh
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By:
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Adam Zamoyski
About this listen
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 PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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)
What listeners say about Napoleon
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Tonyd
- 24-01-24
Fascinating
Compelling from the beginning to the end. 29 hours went be so quickly! What a fabulously interesting time and and an equivalently fabulous read
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- Anonymous User
- 15-02-21
Worthwhile read
More battle focus would of been nice, but considering the book is so long, it's focus as a humanizing portrait of Napoleon is effective and helps paint a clear picture of the man throughout the highs and lows of his eventful life and as a general, ruler, and mortal.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- afc
- 01-01-22
Excellent performance, compelling narrative
The author makes mention of Andrew Robert’s take on Napoleon’s life, however I found this book to have a more nuanced description of the early years in particular. The account of the Italian and Egyptian campaigns is detailed and yet contextualised. It does still portray very clearly the changes in character and personality over the transition to Empire.
Very good writing but perhaps not enough detail to cover adjacent characters that were of extreme importance to Napoleon in his later years.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Julien Coullet
- 13-04-24
Worth it
Great content, especially valuable thanks to the sources. However, a final chapter on the heritage Napoleon left in France and across Europe would have been welcome.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Cryptochimp
- 18-11-24
An excellent biography
This is a well-written, comprehensive biography of Napoleon that fulfils the promise of its title. Zamoyski shows that Napoleon was a skilled propagandist who inflated the magnitude of his achievements and masked his failures and personal failings. In the course of the book we learn the true nature of this self-declared emperor: he was vain, a megalomaniac, grossly immoral in his private life, was very intelligent, and loved war. Napoleon's brothers, sisters and mother also feature in the biography, and I became fascinated by the personalities, life-histories and intrafamilial quarrels and rivalries of this family who, thanks to one brother’s success, became key members of the ruling class of Europe in the early nineteenth century. The book confirmed the low opinion of Josephine, Napoleons first wife, that I formed from previous biographies of Napoleon that I have read.
Zamoyski does not write at length about Napoleon’s military battles, which are covered in detail in military histories. However, he does show that on several key occasions Napoleon’s ego prevented him from making tactical withdrawals that might have saved the day. So much for Napoleon’s supposed military genius.
This is a lengthy book (27 hours) but Zamoyski’s narrative skill is attested by the fact that at the start of the book I listened to it while doing household chores but by the end I had become so gripped by the narrative that I sat alone in a quiet room listening to the final hour of the book, which describes the psychological and physical suffering of Napoleon in his final days. On one level I felt sorry for the man, but on another level I felt that he deserved his lonely demise.
Leighton Pugh’s narration is excellent.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- TonyC
- 21-07-23
Balanced biography.
A great listen. It gets closer to the man behind the myth than any other biographies of Napoleon that I have read. All in all a very balanced account particularly in tracing the transformation of the idealistic young Corsican to the somewhat less idealistic Emperor of the French.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Charly SW
- 05-05-24
Best book about the Usurper that I have read!
A real look behind the scenes into Bonies mind. Very much enjoyed this book. It does not go into details of each battle but looks at the bigger picture.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- "tpurcell9"
- 05-12-21
The detail expected from Zamoyski
Anybody who has read Adam Zamoyski's works, expects a certain level of detail and easy accessibly, you will not be disappointed here.
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1 person found this helpful
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- M. Cooke
- 26-01-23
A humanising account of a flawed but great man.
This is an excellent work on Bonaparte that seeks to avoid the mythologising tendencies of other authors. Nonetheless this warts-and-all account of his life and personality doesn’t not hide the greatness of his, albeit inconsistent, military, administrative, and political genius. This humanised version of his life makes me admire him more and his greatness and failings are contextualised carefully.
Well researched, written, and narrated and it is a compellingly-told story of the life of a man.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Grumpy Jack
- 22-05-19
Detailed, well researched and thought provoking...
This was not always as easy a listen as some books that I’ve heard of late; and I’m not sure why. If you do enter into the journey of this account of Napoleon’s life, stick with it, it is remarkably detailed and well researched and ultimately rewarding. Unless you’re an aficionado of Napoleon, there will be much to learn, much to surprise and much to contemplate. You will be a better historian, better student, better politician and perhaps a better citizen for understanding the life of quite such a remarkable man and just how and why he rose and fell.
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