Napoleon: A Biography

Napoleon Bonaparte was a bully, rude and insulting. Women did not like him. But even so, writes Frank McLynn, "he had an amazing ability to sway other men to his purposes," which earned him one of the greatest empires Europe had ever known. McLynn, a noted biographer of difficult personalities, gives us a many-sided Napoleon: the shrewd strategist, the intolerant prude, the scrappy fighter, the charismatic leader, the sadist. ("He liked to strike people of both sexes, to slap them, pull their hair, pinch their ears and tweak their noses.") He nonetheless managed to extend French rule to the gates of Moscow. Why, then, was he so resoundingly defeated? McLynn argues that, among other things, Napoleon was not ruthless enough in dealing with the "endless list of ingrates" that surrounded him.

McLynn's book has several virtues, and readers interested in Napoleon's brief but brilliant career will want to have a look. --Gregory McNamee