Napoleon Man of War, Man of Peace
Paperback (18 Feb 2004)
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Napoleon may have caused more men's deaths than any martial leader before him. Indeed, "the paths of glory Napoleon trod," biographer Timothy Wilson-Smith estimates in his introduction, "led possibly one million Frenchmen, and maybe as many as four million men from other lands, to their graves." Napoleon's peacetime accomplishments, however, have long survived the massive military sacrifice. Numerous societies and learned institutions that he created preserve his name and fame to this day. Museum collections attest to his passion for the arts. His Code Napoleon continues to thrive, and some credit him with a vision for a united Europe that the European Union has finally achieved. Both these Napoleonsthe military genius and the social visionaryare fully covered in this new biography, which surveys in vivid, sometimes harrowing detail Napoleon's liberation of the continent from the old social order and chronicles the chaos that accompanied it through almost twenty years of warfare. It shows that the men who eventually brought Napoleon downchief among them the inveterately conservative Castlereagh and Metternichfailed to grasp Napoleon's most remarkable gift: his ability not only to erect cultural monuments but also to effect significant social change that would long outlive his own defeat and downfall.
Book information
ISBN: | 9780786713165 |
Publisher: | Da Capo Books |
Imprint: | Basic Books |
Pub date: | 18 Feb 2004 |
Language: | English |
Number of pages: | 320 |
Weight: | 226g |
Height: | 222mm |
Width: | 146mm |
Spine width: | 25mm |