I was at the library recently, browsing the history section, and came across a short bio of Napoleon by Paul Johnson. Now I’m French so most of what I’ve read of Napoleon has been the work of French historians, which can tend to be quite flattering, although some authors are rather critical, but in general it’s a fair depiction of Napoleon himself and the era, at least from a French point of vue. I read the back and saw the author is British so I thought I’d read it, I’ve never read a British author’s work on Napoleon, it would be interesting to see that perspective.

But damn, this book is absolutely dripping with venom. It almost seems like Johnson was hate writing this book. He starts Napoleon’s life by portraying Corsica as some insignificant vulgar place, and implying the Napoleon family had no class or pedigree and was just born lucky. He continues to minimize every single one of Napoleon’s exploits, emphasizing his luck and summing up his personnality to opportunism saying that Napoleon was no patriot, and performs historical fellatio every time Nelson or Wellington are brought up, talking about Napoleons later defeats before he’s even gotten to how he became emperor. And absolutely worst of all, he draws several parallels between Napoleon and both Hitler and Stalin, citing the Napoleonic empire as a direct influence to the totalitarian genocidal states. At that point I was disgusted by the book and haven’t finished it but I’m sure it gets worse.

The whole biography reeks of British superiority, the fact that British aristocracy is still salty almost two centuries later is really hilarious. Anyways all this to say do not read Paul Johnson’s biography of Napoleon ! Anybody have actually decent recommendations from Anglo Saxon historians ?