My latest read. Andrew Roberts’ 900 page seminal work on the life of the great Napoleon Bonaparte. What was it about this individual that took him from relatively humble beginnings to becoming the Emperor of France and one of Europe’s greatest Generals.
As a young man he was gifted with an amazing intellect. He excelled in mathematics and read ferociously. Devouring such works as the histories of the Arabs, the philosophical writings of Voltaire, He also read Caesar, Cicero, Diderot as well as Nepos’ lives of the great captains which included chapters on Themistocles and Hannibal.
Two of Napoleons greatest heroes were Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great and his imagination opened him up to the possibility that he might one day stand alongside theses giants of the past.
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