Napoleon: A Biography

Great if you want a single, readable narrative of Napoleon's life. McLynn's book only aims to summarise the best research on Napoleon, so aficionados shouldn't expect anything new. But this is a welcome introduction to Napoleon's life.1) BIASAny book on Napoleon seems to suffer at least one of two criticisms: either it's said to hero-worship Napoleon, or it is said to bring back the 'black legend'. Both claims are somewhat true here: McLynn is both too generous and too critical of Napoleon. On the generosity side, McLynn spends quite a lot of time defending Napoleon from his critics. He sometimes echoes Napoleon's own propaganda. For example, Napoleon frequently complained that his failings were not his fault, but rather he was betrayed and let down by his marshals, and by his family. McLynn buys this line too quickly, and the Marshalls and his brother Joeseph in particular get an ungenerous treatment as a result. McLynn is even more disparaging of Napoleon's Russian, German, Prussian and British counterparts. On the critical side, McLynn paints many of Napoleon's unsuccessfuly decisions as foolish. For example, rather than understanding the reasons behind the invasion of Russia, or his dealings with women, McLynn prefers to put them down to irrational 'complexes' in Napoleon's character. I would like to have seen more done to try to make sense of Napoleon's reasons. Napoleon of 1913 onwards is painted as someone who just couldn't be bothered to win. In short, balanced - but perhaps not in the right way.2) 'PSYCHOBABLE'McLynn psychoanalyses Napoleon: he claims that Napoleon suffers from a variety of complexes: a brother complex, an oriental complex. At one point, he even traces Napoleon's neurosis to the (false) claim that Napoleon was short. Personally, I think that psychoanalysis is bunkum. So I found these passages tiresome, and unhelpful. Thankfully, this didn't ruin the book for me: although they form a large part of the early chapters on Napoleon's childhood, they disappear almost entirely for the rest of the book, and can be safely skipped where they do appear.3) READABILITYIn general, McLynn writes well. He often uses very formal and old-fashioned words, and occasionally these are used inappropriately. But by-and-large, the vocabulary causes little distraction, and the book is a pleasure to read.SUMMARYIn summary, a good introduction to Napoleon. It stumbles by being both too critical and too generous, and reflects many of the faults of modern Napoleonic scholarship. But it is as good as, or better than, anything other introductory biography out there.[Husband of account holder]

Disappointing, overly psychological, potboiler biography of Napoleon that is exceedingly psycho-sexual in its explanatory framework, and, therefore, fails to create a clear and objective evaluation of its subject as soldier and statesman, general and emperor. In addition, it is marred by misunderstandings about the politics outside of France and marked by too many basic errors, such as making Bernadotte king of Sweden when he was crown prince until 1818, and confusing Pitt with the Ministry of All the Talents and Grenville with Hawkesbury as Foreign Secretaty under Addington.The book is ridiculously anti-British throughout, painting the actions of the Pitt ministry and its successors and the exploits of the military constantly in the worst possible light, and drawing unjustifiable comparisons between England and Napoleonic France, always to the advantage of the latter.McLynn seems incapable of evaluating the achievements of Napoleon, painting all possible greatness in prosaic colours of drabness, and seemingly unable to accept the emperor's extraordinary talents, but, incapable of constructing his life as other than meteoric, he constantly diminishes the attainments of those who worked with and against Napoleon. Not only are the Marshals, with the odd exception such as Suchet and Davout, portrayed as idiots and incompetents, especially Ney, or traitors, as with Bernadotte, but important, constructive figures such as Castleresgh, Wellington, Metternich, and Talleyrand, each pursuing justifiable and understandable policies, are constantly and excessively berated and ascribed mendacious motives for policies of ill intent.At almost 700 pages this book is a reasonably detailed study of Napoleon, but it conspicuously fails to properly evaluate the man or contextualise his times, and its Freudian-Jungian architecture perhaps tells more about the obsessions of the author than it does about the motivations of the extraordinary man who was Napoleon Bonaparte. In the end, Napoleon comes across as a sexually neurotic opportunist riding a tide of historical forces in a world populated by greedy, grafting nonentities. Napoleon is not great, it is just that everyone else is so much less.

I found McLynn treatment of women problematic, with a heavy focus on slutshaming (count the instances in which he terms women with normal sexual appetites as 'nymphomaniacs', including Napoleon's teenage sister). He's very fond of the word 'fading' when describing women over the age of 30, we're not exactly living in Logan's run.The rest was ok - like previous reviewers I found some of McLynn's assumptions and leaps to conclusions as far as Napoleon's psychology is concerned, odd and at times far-fetched. I started skipping such passages after a while and found the reading experience improved.

Arguably a biography with complete and meticulous attention to detail. The author presents the social and economic status in and around France during the life of Napoleon. This is helpful for us to contemplate Napoleon's course of action and judge it, regardless of the author's opinion. Additionally, the book attempts an overall psychological assessment of the greatest Frenchman who has ever lived. Definitely recommended to the amateur historian and to a Napoleon enthusiast alike.

all good says it all ....no surprises or disappointments !!

Apart from a little too much psycho-analysis on Napoleon, the factual sources and research are very good. An enjoyable, informative read.

Good background reading for A level students.

Very Good