This biography by Frank McLynn, a journalist for the Irish Times, underlines the unresolved tensions within the man, how he was on the one hand a perfectly rational product of the enlightenment and yet on the other consulted a ‘little red man' when about to make important decisions. This later ‘primitiveness' (as McLynn describes it) stems, so the author tells us, from his Corsican background. The book gives good account of the rise and fall, and at the same time takes sideswipes at the Grand Army, the leaders of which McLynn sees as little more than brigands in uniform. The author also asks the question as to how long Napoleon could have gone on. The book has been reviewed by Lawrence James in the London Times 20/11/97.
Napoleon: a biography
Author(s) : MCLYNN Frank
- Year of publication :
- 1997
- Place and publisher :
- London: Jonathan Cape
- Number of pages :
- 739