Napoleon, Adam Zamoyski
Napoleon, Adam Zamoyski
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Napoleon
A Life

Author: Adam Zamoyski

Narrator: Leighton Pugh

Unabridged: 27 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 10/16/2018

Synopsis

The definitive biography of Napoleon -- hailed as "magnificent" by The Economist.

"What a novel my life has been!" Napoleon once said of himself. Born into a poor family, the callow young man was, by twenty-six, an army general. Seduced by an older woman, his marriage transformed him into a galvanizing military commander. The Pope crowned him as Emperor of the French when he was only thirty-five. Within a few years, he became the effective master of Europe, his power unparalleled in modern history. His downfall was no less dramatic.

The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment, and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.

About Adam Zamoyski

Adam Zamoyski was born in New York and educated at Oxford. He is the author of Moscow 1812. He lives in London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sumit on May 09, 2019

"What A Novel My Life Has Been!" ~ Napoleon Napoleon, A life, is an interesting take on Napoleon and his life. Mr. Zamoyski has crafted an intriguing account of Napoleon's life, relying mainly upon the accounts and impressions that he left upon his contemporaries. The focus of this work is more......more

Goodreads review by Jean on April 16, 2019

There are two books by the same name,” Napoleon: A Life”. This one is by Zamoyski and was published in 2019. The other is by Andrew Roberts and published in 2015. I read it in 2015 and found it to be an outstanding biography of Napoleon. The reason I decided to read Zamoyski’s book was his attempt t......more

Goodreads review by Brett on December 25, 2023

"The people want only me...I am not only the emperor of the soldiers, I am the emperor of the peasants, the plebians of France...that is why despite the past, you can see the people gather to me. There is a bond between us." pg 640 This was a remarkable read in my opinion. Adam Zamoyski wrote a smoot......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on October 08, 2023

He Was Napoleon. Count Adam Zamoyski wanted to write this book ‘not to justify or condemn, but to piece together his life.’ Zamoyski wanted to tell the story of how he achieved what he did and then when it came down to it, how he undid it all. Napoleon defined an age and to Zamoyski he is very much a......more

Goodreads review by Boudewijn on November 29, 2020

Much has been written about Napoleon and I expect you could fill half of New York’s Public Library with them. Loved by many, feared and hated by many others, resulting in an often romantic way of describing Napoleon’s life or depicting him as a mass murderer. This book, by Adam Zamoyski, stands some......more

Quotes

"It is the outstanding merit of Adam Zamoyski's fine new biography, Napoleon: A Life, that he insists on treating his subject as neither a superman nor a monster, but as a creature of his troubled age...Zamoyski gives us...a vivid sense of Napoleon as a protean chancer, outwardly self-confident as any man who ever lived, inwardly always wondering when his 'star' would finally set."—New York Review of Books

"Zamoyski...attempts to cut through the fantasy and retrospective exaggeration to tell the story of an extraordinary, but certainly not superhuman life.... Napoleon emerges from Mr. Zamoyski's book a willful, self-made opportunist...gifted, energetic, brave, lucky, but also a bit ridiculous."—Wall Street Journal

"Magnificent...Napoleon was neither demon nor deity. He was a man, with great talents and great flaws, often intertwined...[Mr. Zamoyski] writes beautifully."—Economist

"Zamoyski tells the personal side of Napoleon's life...his hopes, his dreams, his self-doubts."—New York Journal of Books

"Zamoyski's book is one of the finest biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte ever written."—MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History

"A lifetime's diligent research and profound thinking about Napoleon and his times has gone into this hugely readable, highly enjoyable and well-balanced biography. Zamoyski is at the top of his game as a biographer."—Andrew Roberts, Visiting Professor, Department of War Studies, King's College, London

"A biography of Napoleon Bonaparte that avoids the well-established military details and gives us the story of a singular man...Illuminating."—Kirkus

"Engaging and highly readable.... An inclusive life of a historical dynamo."—Washington Times

"Adam Zamoyski's 700-plus-page but very readable Napoleon: A Life...shows how France's tired post-revolutionary leaders in 1796 recognized they were riding a tiger---but didn't expect him to eat them."—World Magazine

"A superb history of a complicated man and time."—Choice

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