Race Hochdorf’s piece on Napoleon.

Below, a photo of my copy of Frank McLynn’s Napoleon biography, the painting on whose cover has long enthralled me. It is, apparently, of Napoleon at Borodino. Also below, my hardback of Napoleon the Great. While I’m at it, Philip Dwyer’s Napoleon trilogy is also well worth reading. Both McLynn and Dwyer are much more negative than Roberts, and wrongly so as far as I’m concerned, but they are still brilliant and insightful biographers.

Roberts’s account is, in my view, the best biography—or at least the best single-volume biography in the English language. Admittedly, I have not read Adam Zamoyski’s 2018 biography, but I do recommend his debate with Roberts about whether Napoleon deserves to be called ‘the Great’. As I recall, Roberts undeservedly lost the debate. Pfeh—foolish audience!

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