Written with great wit and panache, this biography also has a serious purpose: to make us face up to the moral bankruptcy of Napoleon's dictatorship. Johnson tells the whole story: his astonishing gift for figures and calculation, his mastery of cannon; his audacious, hyperactive and aggressive generalship and his simple battle tactics; his complete control of propaganda and the success of the cultural presentation of the Empire; the Code Napoleon; his failure as an international statesman, as Europe grew to hate him; his marshals and ministers; his wives, mistresses, personal style and working methods; the British blockade and the Continental System; the mistakes in Spain and Russia. The escape from Elba, the events leading up to Waterloo and the battle itself, which gets a full treatment, is particularly riveting.

作者簡介：

保羅．約翰遜（Paul Johnson, 1928-）

英國記者、作家、歷史學家，先後受教於耶穌會史東尼赫斯特學院與牛津大學。1950年代為政論雜誌《新政治家》撰稿而聲譽鵲起，進而成為該雜誌主編。1980年代開始為大西洋兩岸的報章雜誌撰寫專欄，如《旁觀者》《每日郵報》《每日電訊》《紐約時報》《華爾街日報》《富比士》等。出版超過四十餘部著作，以大眾歷史與人物傳記為主，如《基督教史》《美國人民史》《猶太人史》《現代世界史》《文藝復興》《伊莉莎白一世》《邱吉爾》《華盛頓》《所謂的知識份子》《創作大師的不傳之祕》等。

譯者簡介：

李怡芳

台大外文系畢業。英國愛丁堡藝術學院碩士。寫過幾本旅遊書，與家人在愛爾蘭定居過數年。為不少部得獎國片如《最遙遠的距離》《流浪神狗人》《山豬溫泉》翻譯過英文字幕。熱愛天翻地覆的電影拍攝工作，如近期參與的台灣電影《愛琳娜》。也喜歡靜靜地在書桌前，滑入文字的世界。