Napoleon

By: Paul Johnson

Narrated by: John Lee

Paul Johnson's book is a refreshing return to a concept whose time has come once again: the Great Man theory of biography. It serves as "the greatest possible refutation of those who hold that events are governed by forces, classes, economics, and geography rather than the powerful wills of men and women". Napoleon truly was the Great Man of his age, a towering and terrible genius who managed to conquer the Continent.

In Napoleon's insatiable hunger for power, Johnson sees a pragmatist constrained neither by patriotism nor by ideology, a brilliant opportunist who fulfilled his ambition in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Johnson puts Napoleon in the context of his times, but his effort seems to underline even more profoundly how Napoleon stood out above them.

©2002 Paul Johnson (P)2002 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Paul Johnson . . . is a historian at the top his game. His judgments are sure. His historical range is sweeping. His storytelling is crisp and his writing elegant.” (The Baltimore Sun)

“The selection of the venerable British historian . . . Paul Johnson to write on Napoleon . . . has turned out to be a wise one: Johnson is succinct, critical, and deeply skeptical of the Napoleonic legend.” (The Atlantic Monthly)

“This is a jewel of a book; comprehensive, brief, and passionate.” (The Economist)

Start with this Napoleon Book

I dowloaded and lsitened to this Napoleon book, and the one by Fischer also available on Audible. I am new to Napoleon, and if you are too, I recommend starting with this book by Johnson first, and the one by Fischer afterwards. Johnson's short book sets the stage for the modern reader and is read is a gripping manner by John Lee. Fischer's book provides sought after detail but loses the novice Napoleon reader because it assumes some familiarity with the outlines of his career.

Highly recommended

A book full of fresh insights on a well-covered topic.
Johnson gives us a critical yet balanced biography of Bonaparte, which avoids the pitfall of getting bogged down with individual battles. Despite the great breadth and thoroughness of this book, the pacing is swift, the style lively and captivating. To top it all off, "Napoleon" is read by John Lee, one of the best narrators on audible.com.

Incredible

A must read and necessary correction to the despicable Napoleonic hero worship pervasive among Marxists

Not your standard biography

This book breezes through an extremely eventful life with much less detail than one commonly finds in a biography. Presumably, this is because there are so many biographies of Napoleon that it is difficult to break any new ground. The result is a very short "biography" that seemed to me more an extended reflection on Napoleon's life than a narration. If, like me, you are looking for basic information about the man, I think you will find yourself wanting more than this book delivers.

I suspect that British readers will fare better than Americans, not only because some of the shorter French quotations are untranslated, but also because the author assumes great familiarity with events of continental European history. Thus, things like the Terror and the events of 18 Brumiere are mentioned, but not explained. At one point the author states that one of Napoleon's ministers played much the same role that so-and-so played in the government of Charles de Gaulle. That may be the greatest analogy ever for all I know, but the amount of information it communicated to me was approximately zero. I'm quite willing to concede that this is my fault, but I think I know more European history than the average American so I'm warning everyone: If you can't say off the top of your head what happened on 18 Brumiere and why it mattered, I think you'll find this book as unsatisfying as I did. If you can't say off the top of your head who Robespierre was (there's a hint in the phrase "off the top of your head"), you'll fare even worse, and probably shouldn't even bother with this selection until you've read some other history of the era.

Interesting, insightful, well-read. but.....

Paul Johnson does a good job in this relatively short book in objectively examining, and demolishing, the shallow cult of Bonaparte. He reinforces what Churchill observed: that Napoleon was as great as a man could be, without being good.
Johnson does make one elementary error that surprised me however: he conflated Napoleon's brothers Lucien and Louis as if they were the same person. One would think such a basic error would have been picked up in the editing.
The narrator was superb.

Doesn't like Napoleon very much

Paul Johnson is a trenchant critic of dictators in general and Napoleon in particular. I'm reading other, more favorably disposed, biographies at the same time; Johnson is a useful corrective. The man who brought the ideals of the French Revolution to much of the continent of Europe was also the man who repeatedly deserted his troops in a crisis and was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of millions.

John Lee gives his usual clear and energetic interpretation. He seems to have become the go-to guy for biographies of Napoleon.

Book Report

I throughly enjoyed this book. I was assigned it for class and was so glad to find an audiobook. I enjoyed the John Lee’s voice as well as Paul Johnson’s portrayal of Bonaparte. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys learning about European war history.

Too Prejudiced

I generally like Paul Johnson’s histories, but this was far too one sided and anti-Napoleon.

Learned new things about history

Is there anything you would change about this book?

We enjoyed this book because of the great history lesson. Things we never knew about Napoleon. The last half of the book seemed to drag a little.

Which character – as performed by John Lee – was your favorite?

John Lee is always awesome as usual.

Great book

Informative, not dry like some history, and a cautionary tale about imperialism! Napoleon Bonaparte was an amazing soldier and a scary man.