Review of Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire, published in Military History Matters, issue 132
Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire is the compelling, if partial, closing volume of Michael Broers’ Napoleon trilogy. It marks the end of more than a decade of Napoleon-centred writing for Broers, Professor of Western European History at the University of Oxford. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the period or person.
After Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny, narrating origins and first power grabs, and Napoleon: The Spirit of the Age, covering the exercise of European domination, this third volume takes us through the horrors of the 1812 invasion of Russia, the ruthless repression of Napoleon’s ability to fight by ever more united allies, the first exile to Elba, the Hundred Days, Waterloo, and the withering epilogue of St Helena.
Overall, the trilogy exemplifies traditional historiography, taking its subject from birth to death and covering colourful detail in between, setting itself apart by incorporating as much new material as possible (in Broers’ case, readings of newly published Napoleonic correspondence at the Fondation Napoléon in Paris). Judged against its own agenda, each part and the whole of Broers’ Napoleon is a rich, satisfying read, albeit with a few blind spots.
And yet, from another point of view, the work is oddly thin.
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