No other soldier has provoked as much argument as Napoleon Bonaparte. Was Napoleon a monster, driven on by an endless, ruinous quest for military glory - or was he a social and political visionary brought down by the petty, reactionary kings and emperors, clinging to their privileges?
Napoleon's Wars is a book which has no doubt about Napoleon's insatiable greed for military glory, but it is interested in far more than that. Charles Esdaile is profoundly interested in a pan-European context: what was it that made the countries of Europe fight each other, for so long and with such devastating results. The battles themselves he sees as almost side-effects; the consequence of rulers being willing to take the immense risks of fighting or supporting Napoleon - risks which resulted in the extinction of entire countries.
This is history on the grandest and most ambitious scale: a superb reassessment of a tumultuous era.
- ISBN10 1101464372
- ISBN13 9781101464373
- Publish Date 1 October 2009 (first published 25 October 2007)
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Penguin Group
- Format eBook
- Pages 656
- Language English