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Article: Napoleon: A Political Life.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- September 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Napoleon: A Political Life. By Steven Englund. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv, 575. $18.95.)
This biography of Napoleon is nightmarishly inaccurate as to details, but eminently readable, despite the author's love of hyperbole and borrowing. For example, "[Bonaparte's] French divisions ... floated like butterflies and stung like bees ..." (100). Steven Englund "came to Napoleon" as a boy via lead soldiers (469). Another path is popular history, like this Napoleon, that may recruit many disciples for its hero.
The hardback edition of this book [2003] won a prize from the American Historical Association--presumably because of ...