Napoleon: A Concise Biography

Fabulous book.

I bought this book for two reasons: it got a really good review in one of the British History magazines I read, and I have been reading quite a bit about the Napoleonic wars lately, including several biographies of Napoleon. First impressions when the book arrived: it's small in physical size and relatively thin (just over 100 pages)! I was expecting a bigger book, for some reason. That's not a negative, simply an observation. If anything, the size actually works well here, as I was more included to pick up the book and start reading than if it was a huge 1,000-pager. There's only a few illustrations, and I would have liked a few more, but that's a minor complaint.This book reads well and quickly: I finished the book in a couple of days. This is a combination of biography of Napoleon himself, as well as an observation on the times and wars he was engaged in. This helps keep the narrative about the man in the correct historical context, as well as the social context, so it's easier to understand both why he did certain things, and why some things were radical (for the context). If anything, this is the outstanding aspect of this book I liked: it's not just a "he did this, then this, then that" but more "reacting to these conditions, he did this" and helps illuminate the man and his thought processes.How does this book compare to some of the much lengthier biographies? Obviously there's less information in this book that some of the others, but having read two other biographies in the last couple of months, I don't think anything that's missing is crucial or lacking in Bell's narrative. (This is, after all, a 'concise' bio!) Sure, some of the details of his life and times are briefly touched on, and some readers may want more detail, but as a bio of one of the more controversial figures in history, I found this an excellent review and a springboard to reading about some aspects in more detail in other sources (there's a solid reference section at the end).Overall, probably the best bio of Napoleon I've read, and also probably one of the best biographies in general I've read in the last few years. If you have any interest in the Napoleonic era, the wars of the time, and the man who drove them all, this is a great buy.

Great book...interesting person

Very interesting and informative.

Napoleon is not judged by todays standards by saying he was terrible for his opinion on slaves for instance.