Napoleon: The Path to Power
Historical interest in Napoléon seems inexhaustible, a reflection of Napoléon’s success in creating a legend, as biographer Dwyer labels the phenomenon, of his heroic destiny. Recounting the youthful Napoléon’s military and political apprenticeship, Dwyer stresses a combination of more prosaic influences than fate in Napoléon’s rise from Corsican obscurity to leadership of France. At crucial points in his ascent, from obtaining a military scholarship to being enlisted in the 1799 coup that brought him to power, Napoléon enjoyed critical political patronage. In detailing these biographical turning points, Dwyer perceptively appraises traits balancing within Napoléon’s ambitions, in which revolutionary enthusiasm (Napoléon was arrested as a Robespierre supporter) was gradually sapped by cynicism about men and politics. Assessing him as essentially opportunistic, Dwyer makes the case by contrasting what Napoléon said was happening (in contemporaneous and retrospective commentary) with what was actually happening: Napoléon’s categorical military failure in Egypt, for example, was believed a glorious success in France. For readers interested in the French Revolution, Dwyer’s biography possesses attractive narrative fluidity and long-term library value as a research source. --Gilbert Taylor