As author Adam Zamoyski writes in the Preface, his goal in writing this book “is not to justify or condemn, but to put together the pieces of the life of the man born Napoleone Bonaparte; and to examine how he became “Napoleon” and achieved what he did, and why he lost it all.”
To do this, Adam Zamoyski consulted a huge amount of documents, from documents stored in government archives, national libraries of many countries, to published publications, and a lot of historical research. In particular, he focused on many reliable primary sources, carefully studying the memoirs of people like Bourrienne, Fouché, Barras (who were close relatives, or politicians of the same time as Napoleon) and many others.
With the necessary neutrality of a historian and carefulness in research, he eliminated documents that may be widely known but are fragmentary, and cannot be verified for accuracy. Therefore, in the end, the portrait of Napoleon that Adam Zamoyski introduced to readers includes real stories and images, all the fanciful details or subjective, emotional prejudices have been eliminated.
The book consists of 44 chapters, constructing a complete biography of Napoleon Bonaparte starting from when he was a boy born on the island of Corsica, Napoleon's path of development and promotion, until the day he died on the island of St Helena. In which the author devotes a relatively large amount of space to the formative years of Napoleon with the desire to explain the strange trajectory of that life - the life of a man who is still famous and controversial in history for hundreds of years later.
The bookNapoleon BonapartePublished by Dong A Books, 916 pages thick, supplemented with a Photo Supplement of 36 images about Napoleon's life through paintings by contemporary artists, including portraits of Napoleon, portraits of his relatives and related characters, some landmarks, events (such as Tuileries Palace, with the Arc de Triomphe Carrousel, or Napoleon's Coronation Ceremony...) and some other images.
About the author
Adam Zamoyski (born 1949) is a British historian, born into an old Polish aristocratic family. He graduated in History and Modern Languages from The Queen's College, and can speak five languages: English, Polish, French, Italian, and Russian. He currently teaches in the UK, the US, and Europe.
Adam Zamoyski wrote many books on Polish and European history in general, and was also passionate about researching biographies of famous people such as musician Chopin, pianist Paderewski and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
He devoted special attention to the French Emperor and wrote three monumental works: Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon: A Life), 1812 - Napoleon's Deadly Campaign in Moscow, The Peace Ritual - The Fall of the Napoleonic Empire and The Congress of Vienna.
His works have been translated into most European languages and also into Russian, Chinese, Japanese... He is also a familiar writer in many newspapers and magazines such as The Times (London), Times Literary Supplement and Guardian.
