
Napoleon
A Life
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Narrated by:
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Leighton Pugh
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Written by:
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Adam Zamoyski
About this listen
The definitive biography of Napoleon, revealing the true man behind the legend.
"What a novel my life has been!" Napoleon once said of himself. Born into a poor family, the callow young man was, by 26, 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 35. 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.
©2018 Adam Zamoyski (P)2018 Hachette AudioYou may also enjoy...
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What the critics say
"Napoleon is an out and out masterpiece and a joy to read." (Sir Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege)
"A biography of Napoleon Bonaparte that avoids the well-established military details and gives us the story of a singular man...Illuminating." (Kirkus)
"Zamoyski tells the personal side of Napoleon's life...his hopes, his dreams, his self-doubts." (New York Journal of Books)
What listeners say about Napoleon
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joe
- 2019-09-26
Excellently put together and performed biography
I just loved this story, I knew very little about napolen and now am a big fan of his story it is captivating and fascinating to imagine that his novel like life actually happened. An amazing tidvut of history that people should spend the time to learn. Sure the narrator could have better French or Italian pronunciation but thags not a real downfall.
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- Gerhard Kutt
- 2019-11-18
Napoleon: A Life
Wonderfully written, superbly read, a story of a great, intelligent man, whose leadership advanced the world - someone who will be studied for eons to come. One of worlds greatest men ever to have graced our planet.
I highly recommend this book and everything about it! Thank you Adam Zamoyski
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2023-05-09
Entertaining & Informative
A tragic and triumphant figure in relatively recent history.
A fascinating discovery for the reader / listener of Bonaparte’s long lasting impactful and often beneficial consequences for western society through funding cultural and social institutions never implemented on such a scale.
The vacuum of power in the post revolutionary France and Europe allowed a most unlikely common man to gain at least for a time unbridled power. The scale and frequency of which he initiated war on much of the whole
world is terrifying.
The awareness that Napoleon thrived only a brief two hundred years ago brings to life how recent his actions molded much of current political European landscape.
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- mcgr
- 2023-10-06
Fantastic!
Informative and interesting! Could not put it down, had to find excuses to keep listening. Highly recommend.
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- Anonymous User
- 2025-05-19
Turns out, I don't like Napoleon
The narration is good, the story is well written, informative, and detailed. Lately I have been on a biography binge and I thought Napoleon would be a great addition. Turns out, he's not cool. Not like Julius Ceasar or Elizabeth I. Like if I wanted to choose a character, past or present to have dinner with, I would not choose him. I did learn a lot about war though. Not in a Sun Tzu kind of a way ... more in a what not to do ... kind of way.
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- A
- 2022-03-22
a solid book
this is the first book I have read solely on Napoleon. it's a good account that is also narrated well. a few points I will make:
-the different names of people are really hard to keep track of
- the author doesn't, in my mind, treat Napoleon unfairly, but doesn't make a hero out of him
-the battle recounting is short as opposed to some of the policital back and forth which is a bit long-winded
Overall I would recommend if you are looking for a good account of who Napoleon was as a person and not so much a focus on legendary battles.
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- Brandon Cain
- 2023-09-30
Fantastic
By showing the real man, flaws and all, the Author makes Napoleon all the more compelling and in a strange way relatable. A master piece in the field of Narrative History and Biography! Highly recommended!
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- Quadratic
- 2019-06-10
Great narration. Historically biased writing.
My main problem with this book is that the author goes beyond the facts and inserts his own narrative.
It's fine to point out when Napoleon said something that the facts don't support. It's also fair to draw comparisons of alleged war crimes with actions taken by other countries commonly at the time.
What's not fine as an historian is to insert your own moral judgements into the text. Let the reader conclude from the data what to believe about Napoleon. Don't outright tell the reader that what he did was good, or what he did was bad. It's also not fine to put yourself into Napoleon's mind and assert his motives throughout his life. Stick to the facts as we know them, outlining how we've come to know them, but stop there.
No complaints about the audio work. It's top notch.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Frank Loomer
- 2024-08-28
Makes you want to learn more
Strangely, Napoleon reminds me a bit of Donald Trump in his self-serving propaganda, except Napoleon was a truly greater than life human being who deliberately sought political glory and greatness based on an aggressive military leadership, putting himself time and again in personal danger to achieve military, and subsequently, political victory, telling whatever lies he needed in the moment - but ultimately, overreached himself in his disastrous Russian campaign while trying to subdue all of Europe once and for all. Most of all, he advanced France, and the rest of Europe, into the modern era as the French revolution seemed to falter on itself, by forming a dictatorship over a remade centralized state, embracing both the revolutionary spirit of the Revolution, the advance of the Enlightment and science, and traditional religious Catholicism, exporting revolutionary ideas and conquest at the same time. He was both part of a whirland , and a rider of it, Zamoyski is spare with the perspective of both Napoleon's allies allies and opponents, and the onset of both violent yet progressive change which continued to tear through European history. It is worth learning more indeed. Then again, histories have dwelt at length with this, hither should any interested reader advance, whether through biographies or more general treatments. All of which has kept historians busy every since.
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