“Andrew Roberts's Life of Napoleon is witty, humane and unapologetically admiring”: Review by Dan Jones in The Guardian (6 October, 2014):
“…Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and by many people's reckoning the most brilliant general of modern times, is one of those who has most conspicuously failed to have greatness thrust upon him. This was not for want of trying on his part. From his youth Napoleon studied the careers of history's titans with a view to mimicking them. His dazzling rise and spectacular rule – he was a general at the age of 24, an emperor at 34 – was an object lesson in one man bending the world to his will. But Napoleon the Great? The title of Andrew Roberts's masterly new biography will have many scratching their chins. It is worth considering why…”