| View Larger Image | Napoleon Bonaparte: A Life | Paperbackby Alan Schom (Author)
| List Price: | $24.95 | | Price: | $18.96 | | You Save: | $5.99 (24%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Harper Perennial | | Page Count: | 944 Pages | | Publication Date: | September 01, 1998 | | Sales Rank: | 239,170th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Finalist, Los Angeles Times book prize biography named one of Library Journal's best books of 1997 Praise for Napoleon Bonaparte |
Amazon.com Review
You won't come away from this energetic biography thinking much of the French emperor either as a man or as a general. Historian Alan Schom depicts Napoleon (1769-1821) as a cold-hearted manipulator: Schom's blistering accounts of the 1798-99 Egyptian campaign and the disastrous 1812 retreat from Russia show the French army decimated due to its leader's failure to inform himself about the lands he was invading or to properly plan for provisioning his troops. The fun of this book comes from vigorous prose that vividly evokes Bonaparte's titanic personality and the colorful band of schemers surrounding him. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 104 reviews)
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Don't Read This If You Want A Balanced Look At Napoleon by daveray (Los Angeles)  1 Stars
March 02, 2009
This book is just absolutely ridiculous and is proof that ANY Napoleon book can be published because he's such a popular subject. Napoleon more than any other figure in history has been the victim of a 200 year smear campaign and is held to a double standard that no other figure in history is held to. It's almost as if he was so good at everything that people treat him as some sort of demigod and judge his actions as if he wasn't a normal human being. Nowhere can that be found more than in this "book". It's obvious that Alan Schom is in awe of the emperor but feels embarassed of that fact so wrote a book in order to convince himself that Napoleon was in fact a mortal man and not the superman of his dreams. Alan Schom is just a kid writing a book and to those of us who are well versed in the Napoleonic story this is just laughable fodder.
In other words its a VERY unbalanced look at Napoleon which should be avoided by....everbody.
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The Megalomaniac by T. McLaughlin (Chatham, NJ)  5 Stars
February 15, 2009
Of all the dictatorial tyrants, Napoleon seems to have the most favorable press. I suppose they are mostly either French people or military strategist nerds, but they are there, and it is true that he was much better at winning battles than Hitler or Stalin were. But the most important thing about him that mankind needs to know is well expressed in this book. His whole purpose was personal exaltation, there was no point beyond that. All the suffering that Europe endured because of him, because of the brilliant way he manipulated others, was to no purpose at all. He was the force of destruction. He was Death itself. How many people had to die because of his pointless, strategically brilliant or sometimes purely accidental rampages through Europe? How many people had to be maimed, impoverished, widowed so that he could feel good? There are two interesting parallels to Hitler: they both used to subject their colleagues to endless monologues and they both blamed others for everything. Both found the people they had come to lead to glory unworthy of their leadership. No shame, no conscience whatsoever.
This is a superb study of barbarism in all its trappings with all the absurdities that attend extreme egotism. I'm very glad it was written.
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Detailed but Biased by Kieran O'Keefe  3 Stars
January 07, 2009
Before I read this book, I knew little about Napoleon and his times other than the fact that he tried to take over the Europe and was an excellent General. This book taught me a lot of facts, but that is all I can really say.
Schom is very biased in the book, and ironically he states that he wishes, as an American since America was not involved in the war(well, there was the War of 1812), to give an unbiased review. He dwells on all of the negative things Napoleon did, leaves out,(from what I have read elsewhere) crucial information, and for the most part, ignores all of the improvements Napoleon made in France and his empire such as school, canals, emancipation the Jews etc. It also seems to me, for some completely unknown reason, Schom thinks Napoleon was lucky everytime he won a battle.
I give Schom 3 stars because it taught me a lot about Napoleon and is relatively easy to read. However, if you want an unbiased book I would look elsewhere. I am.
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Napoleon Bonaparte by Frederick C. Bronner (Los Angles, CA) 1 Stars
January 03, 2009
Napoleon Bonaparte by Alan Schom is truly a "scham" on this historical subject. The author's approach on this biography is with a great prejudicial agenda and truly filled odd interpretations of Napoleon, his battles, intellect, strategy, contributions (good and bad)by the subject and the reaction and views of the French people of his era.
Following Mr. Schom's aprox 790 page journey of Napoleon's life fails to even explain basics; of the intense following and charisma of Napoleon. In every chapter, Napoleon somehow bungles through his historic battles and decisions, through little credit to his planning etc. Mr Schoms argument of the French economy in a shambles brought on by Napoleon and his immense expenditures and the dependency of war loot to prop it up is a failure by the author to understand basic economics; or even understand how difficult life was for the French middleclass and poor in France during the monarchy. It was feudalism under an indifferent corrupt, uncaring monarchy.
Building an economy, a government spends in surplus; when you have war booty and colonial taxes, that is not surplus that is revenue! That revenue is then spent on expanding avenues and modernizing the French capital and roadways is no different than the govenment project of the 1930s in the US and what is recuring today. During Napoleon's time, that money was spent, creating "jobs" and putting money into the French worker, creating a booming economy. Mr Schom's coverage of the French ship building phase for the plans to invade England is looked only as a colossal waste. But this created immense work projects and income for depressed seaport towns that were otherwise blockaded by the Royal Navy.
I lost count of the Mr's Scham's rant of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign and how many times he mentions it through his tirade of a book.
I will not even go into the many subjects and eras of Napoleon's life that is not even following the conventional historical view! Mr Schom even mocks the creation of the Legion of Honor, rather odd since it is still quite an honor to be recognised by this award.
The author even blunders the subject of the monarchy's return and how quickly through their ineptitude lost the public's support, setting the stage for Napoleon's return. Good god, how can anyone over look this!
The final era of Napoelon' life on St Helena is also a blunder as well. Aside form making General Lowe look like a genious Rennaisance-man (and was dull and dim-witted), Mr Schom takes the plunge on the poison theory completely as the only fact, which recent studies clearly dispute outright. It would have been better to cover both tracts since history is truly for the ages (and historians) to ponder.
I had this books for several years on my immense library wall and finally read it over the holidays in 2008.
I cannot recommmend this book or any portion of the writing in any fashion, since there are so many horrendously poor personalized and interjections by the author. I wouldn't even loan this to anyone. If you are considering to buy your first book on the subject of this era, please do not even consider this as a choice!
No Legion of Honor for this author.
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Very, very biased by Milka Rakita (Chicago, IL)  2 Stars
August 05, 2008
This book offers a tremendous amount of detail and information and that makes it an ok work. However, the problem with it is author's bias and an outright, unconcealed animosity toward Napoleon. In general I am against historians making moral value judgments in their books, however, if the do it than the bare minimum which we as readers should get is balance. In this work Schom essentially highlights all the bad traits which marked Napoleon and by skipping over the faults of other historical figures he makes Napoleon look like a 19th. century Hitler, as someone already said. While he goes into gruesome detail to explain the problems of 19th. century battlefield medicine in the French army he never mentions the fact that other armies were not all that great either, and when English loose thousands soldiers to disease as they did when they tried to take Antwerp, he does not describe the details of those 4,000 gruesome deaths and does not blame the surgeons, the lack of medical staff and equipment etc. in the British army.
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