The Age of Napoleon

Will Durant · Ariel Durant

jun 2011 · Simon and Schuster

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“[An] in-depth portrayal of Napoleon not only as a military leader and despot but as a philosopher and a man who understood human nature.” —John A. Semone, New York Times

An engrossing volume on European civilization by Pulitzer Prize–winning historians Will and Ariel Durant.

The Age of Napoleon, the eleventh and final volume of the Story of Civilization, surveys the amazing chain of events that wrenched Europe out of the Enlightenment and into the age of democracy. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter the French Revolution from the storming of the Bastille to the guillotining of the king; the revolution’s leaders—Danton, Desmoulins, Robespierre, and Saint-Just—all cut down by the reign of terror they inaugurated; Napoleon’s meteoric rise from provincial Corsican military student to emperor and commander of the largest army in history; Napoleon’s fall—his army’s destruction in the snows of Russia, his exile to Elba, his escape and reconquest of the throne, and his ultimate defeat at Waterloo by the combined forces of Europe; and the birth of Romanticism and the dawning of a new age of active democracy and a rising middle class, laying the foundation for a new era.

“[The authors’] gifts are accuracy, clarity, and the organization of a huge amount of material into a lively narrative.” —Saturday Review

“Carefully researched, beautifully written.” —Library Journal

“[The Durants] are incapable of writing a dull book.” —Time

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Will Durant (1885–1981) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (1968) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977). He spent more than fifty years writing his critically acclaimed eleven-volume series, The Story of Civilization (the later volumes written in conjunction with his wife, Ariel). A champion of human rights issues, such as the brotherhood of man and social reform, long before such issues were popular, Durant’s writing still educates and entertains readers around the world.