Analysis Of Napoleon: A Political Life By Steven Englund

Napoleon: A Political Life by Steven Englund crafts for the reader a detailed and comprehensive timeline of Napoleon Bonaparte’s origins and the events that led to rise to power through military success, political knowledge, and personal ambition. In order to accurately present this subject, Englund utilized a large amount of primary sources ranging from letters from Napoleon and others that are mentioned throughout the reading, publications from newspapers during the time, as well as many other reliable sources. Englund himself is an American Historian from California who currently lives in Paris and teaches History at the American University in Paris. It is fairly possible that this move to Paris and his occupation there served as inspiration for Napoleon: A Political Life. During my time reading Englund’s book, I began to examine his writing in order to determine what his thesis was. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that while Napoleon had his fault’s, it was through his military and political behavior throughout the years he remained a large influence, that France experienced one of its most influential periods in years. This stems from the Englund’s large amount of evidence and the foundation …show more content…
While the author and his writing do have their faults, they are not grave enough to change the overall quality of the book. While I was unable to finish the entirety of the book due to time constraints and the overall size of the text, I would not be opposed to finishing it when I have a larger amount of free time. In all honestly, I would highly recommend this as a course material as it gives the reader a wide and comprehensive look of the state of France during and after the Revolution, as well as the impact that Napoleon Bonaparte had on the revolutionary torn