100 Books Like Napoleon Bonaparte

I have always been fascinated by medieval history, but I became interested in this particular era after reading this book and learning about the German Order of Swordbrothers (Schwertbrüderorden). 

What intrigued me was that they were a small Order, not very pious or saintly. They were unorthodox and argued constantly with Bishop Albert, the leader of the Christian mission. They were a rough and ready lot, acting more like brigands than warrior monks. One of the brothers murdered the first master, and they locked up their second master when he tried to exert more control over their behavior. Over time, they were accused of almost every crime.

I loved Christiansen’s book, which opened a new world of discovery. He writes in a witty, easy-to-read style that hooked me from the beginning.

The role of Prussia as a real player in Western European politics is largely due to the most famous of all the Hohenzollerns, the warrior king Frederick the Great. Brutalized as a young cadet by a schooling regimen devised by his buffoonish father, Frederick distinguished himself from the myth of the stereotypical Prussian Junker (uncultivated, boorish, recklessly brave) by developing into a Renaissance gentleman -- fond of music, an unabashed Francophile, patron of Voltaire. This can never disguise his fame as a soldier and master strategist, however, as well as that of an amoral and duplicitous diplomat who essentially put Prussia on the map. Mitford's delightful biography (the 1970 first edition is beautifully illustrated) covers all the high points (and low points) of Frederick’s career in distinguished prose.

Wilhelm II, the last Hohenzollern kaiser of Germany, and the last King of Prussia, bears perhaps more than any other single individual the onus of causing World War I, the most industrial and catastrophic conflict ever seen on earth to that point. His flamboyant personality, erratic thought processes, and often uncontrollable outbursts of temper, disjointed the European political arena on a sometimes weekly basis, causing instability, confusion, and uncertainty in the minds of diplomats throughout Europe. His abdication of the throne in 1918 proved the end of the Hohenzollern dynasty, with East Prussia detached geographically from the rest of Germany by the Polish Corridor, a sore point almost as annoying to contemporary Germans as the Versailles Treaty, and a flashpoint that would ignite again in 1939. Cecil's very well-written and enlightening biography will not be replicated anytime soon.

Marion Dönhoff was born into privilege, 1909, at Schloss Friedrichstein, one of the largest semi-feudal estates in East Prussia, and her memoir lovingly recreates her childhood there amongst a family of cultured and benevolent Junkers. The values they espoused were contrary to everything Nazism represented, but that did not prevent the deaths of nearly all her adult male relatives in either combat or purges after the failed assassination plot against Hitler in 1944. In 1945 she, along with thousands of other refugees, fled west during harsh winter weather, as the Red Army ruthlessly advanced for Berlin and victory. Dönhoff, on a horse from the Friedrichstein stables, rode alone over 800 miles to safety. From 1946 until her death in 2002, she was associated (as both editor and publisher) with the prestigious, Hamburg-based weekly newspaper, Die Zeit. Her memoir is exceptional.

Napoleon Bonaparte brought a decade of revolutionary upheaval to an end when he seized power with the army in November 1799, but he had been made a general by the Revolution and was one of its most celebrated soldiers. The Revolution opened up opportunities for this Corsican “outsider” which would have been impossible before the Revolution: he grabbed them. Dwyer’s prize-winning account of Napoleon’s checkered rise to power at the age of thirty is also a gripping narrative of the unpredictability and drama of the revolutionary decade. It reveals the making of a man whose brilliance, military genius, and vision was qualified by his cynicism, cruelty, and vanity. 

Bizarrely not many quality works on Napoleon’s exile and afterlife exist in English. It is much to Dwyer’s credit to have written a superb account of the stricken eagle’s exile on Saint Helena.

It depicts well how the reality of confinement contrasted markedly with the myth that was fostered by exiles. This is an excellent analysis of these humid days on the South Atlantic followed in the second half by a masterful analysis of how Napoleon became the new Prometheus and Christ for liberals who opposed the Restoration. A riveting read.

This is a fine work of fiction that forms but the first installment of a four-book masterpiece. Max Gallo was a herculean figure in French post-war life. In this volume, he tells the story of Napoleon’s life from his birth in Corsica to the moment in 1799 when he topples the ineffective Directory. I love this book because the author puts us inside Napoleon’s head. We think his thoughts and savour his words. He has put the flesh on the bones of history, conjuring a sympathetic tyro at times plagued by doubts but also willing to take daunting risks. This book made me realise Napoleon was more than an icon or an ogre, an Emperor, or a military genius; he was an outsider, he endured bullying, and he felt the same gamut of emotions as we do. I never looked at historical figures in the same way again.

Madame de Boigne describes the same period as Chateaubriand, whom she disliked, from a liberal perspective. Both had their style and mind improved by suffering during the Emigration, which also made both, for a time, feel half-English. Boigne married a French officer who had made a fortune in India, but failed to tell her he had brought back an Indian wife. She took his money and returned to live with her parents. 

Born with what she called a ‘taste for royalty and the instinct for court life’, she described salons and quarrels, royalty and revolution, Paris and England, from 1780 to 1840. Her friend Count Pozzo di Borgo, for example, she says, would have descended into hell to find enemies for Napoleon, whom he had hated since their childhood in Corsica. She blamed the long foretold revolutions of 1830 and 1848 on monarchs’ exaggerated sense of their infallibility. A genius… show more.

I loved this modern retelling of the story of Désirée Clary, which was somewhat rawer and more visceral than the original Désirée. It continued to help shape my own impressions of Napoleon, who does not come off well in this novel.

Pataki’s ability to capture life at court, Désirée’s continued entanglements with both Napoleon and Josephine, as well as her elevation to the Swedish court as princess and then queen (which she was never comfortable with), is brilliantly captured. 

If earlier European History in the dashing “Age of Napoleon” draws your interest, I again offer the clear master of the subject, David Chandler.

Beginning with Young Bonaparte’s apprenticeship in the art of war as an Artillery officer, you learn the battle experience that led Napoleon to one day assert that: “God is on the side of the one with the best artillery.” Chandler then recounts Napoleon’s Meteoric rise after the battles of Arcola and Rivoli and his exotic excursion to Egypt. Then, with the crown on his head placed there by his own hand, Napoleon Bonaparte became a living terror on the battlefields of Europe with an understanding and art of war that befuddled one adversary after another.

This book was essential in guiding the writing of my book, Field Of Glory. (Volume #1 in my Keyholder series visiting an alternate History Waterloo.)