Book description
No other soldier has provoked as much anger or as much fervour as
Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he a monster, driven on by an endless, ruinous
quest for military adventure or was he a social and political
visionary, brought down by petty reactionaries clinging to their privileges?
Charles Esdaile s major new work reframes our understanding of
Napoleon. Napoleon s Wars looks beyond the insatiable greed for
glory to create a new, genuinely international context for Napoleon s
career. The battles themselves Esdaile sees as almost side-effects,
the consequences of rulers being willing to take the immense risks of
fighting or supporting Napoleon risks that could result in the
extinction of entire countries and regimes.
