This book provides a concise, lively, up-to-date portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte''s character and career, including his most important battles, while situating him firmly in historical context.David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility - for both good and ill - that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe''s most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him tospend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell underlines the importance of the French Revolution of 1789 in understanding Napoleon''s career. It was the Revolution that made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon developed, as well as his unpreceden
