‘This magnificent biography, written with the author’s customary panache, should convince all but the most hardened sceptics. Roberts’s erudition is breathtaking, and he also knows how to write a cracking story.’
Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday Paperbacks of the Week

‘Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon the Great is a glorious book, doing justice to the man who formed modern France and the military leader whose tactics defeated all comers until they learnt to copy him. Napoleon was a great reader, a fast mover and a leader adored by his men.’
Claire Tomalin, Daily Telegraph Books of the Summer

‘If you want an engrossing read that will carry you happily through the summer months, taking your mind off any conceivable troubles by the dramatic story it tells, you cannot do better than Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts. Although the hardback version is a thing of beauty, it does not set out to be lightweight in any sense; therefore it is convenient that a paperback has become quickly available. Subject and author have in common a heroic swagger, and the resulting match is a delight; as to the general line taken, the title of the book neatly sums it up.’
Antonia Fraser Daily Telegraph Books of the Summer

‘This biography is incredibly compelling and clarifying not just about Napoleon but also about the France he left behind him: the life itself is simply one of the most extraordinary stories in world history and Roberts does it justice. Even those previously indifferent or averse to the emperor will find themselves hooked.’
David Sexton, Evening Standard Books of the Summer

‘An extraordinary figure such as Napoleon deserves a monumental biography, and Andrew Roberts certainly provides one with this Arc de Triomphe of a book. It’s a 900 page heavyweight, but Roberts has a lightness of pen that makes his work a pleasure to read.’
Julian Humphreys, BBC History Magazine

‘It is, as one might expect from an accomplished writer of biography and military history, an impressive book, which, over nearly a thousand pages, carries the reader with pace and gusto through the life of a man whose dream of empire transformed Europe.’
Prof Alan Forrest, Journal of the British Commission on Military History

‘A huge, rich, witty, humane and unapologetically admiring biography of 900 pages, each of them is a pleasure to read. To dive into Roberts’s new book is to understand – indeed, to feel – why this peculiarly brilliant Corsican managed for so long to dazzle the world. … Roberts’s book is not just another brilliant narrative biography of Napoleon – although it is certainly this. It is also an essay on statesmanship and a meditation on history itself. It goes without saying that Napoleon would also be delighted with the title and the content of Roberts’s gloriously enjoyable new book.’
Dan Jones, The Daily Telegraph

‘Andrew Roberts in his Napoleon the Great achieves the near impossible by writing on this extravagantly well-covered subject with a freshness and excitement that makes readers think they have stumbled on something entirely new.’
Philip Ziegler Spectator Books of the Year

‘Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon the Great is a brilliant example of “great man” history, brimming with personality and the high-octane Bonapartist spirit.’
John Bew New Statesman Books of the Year

‘My non-fiction book of the year is Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon the Great: superb narrative history grounded in new research.’
Michael Gove, New Statesman Books of the Year

‘Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon the Great is truly a Napoleonic triumph of a book, elegantly written, epic in scale, novelistic in detail, irresistibly galloping with the momentum of a cavalry charge, as comfortable on the battlefield as in the bedroom. Here, at last, is the full biography.’
Simon Sebag Montefiore Evening Standard Books of the Year

‘Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts. The emperor must have been the most energetic multi-tasking person of all time. Even on distant battlefields he would fire off countless letters with instructions, for the the Comédie-Française for example, or the setting up of an orphanage for girls. This enthralling account of his rise and fall is packed with such details. Whether or not he was “great” will continue to be debated — I was convinced, just — but there is no doubt that this is a great biography.’
Miriam Gross Evening Standard Books of the Year

‘The drama of 1812, Waterloo and Napoleon’s exile can rarely have been told so persuasively by an unabashed Bonapartist.’
Robert McCrum, The Observer Biographies of the Year

‘Andrew Roberts’s highly entertaining and provocative Napoleon the Great does not disappoint with its glorious descriptions and sweeping judgments.’
Antony Beevor, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year

‘No one writes narrative history as well as Andrew Roberts, and in Napoleon the Great he has found his ideal subject.’
Michael Gove, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year

‘Long an admirer of Napoleon’s multi-faceted talents and accomplishments, I devoured Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon the Great.’
Princess Michael of Kent, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year

‘In just over 800 pages of elegant, judiciously argued and compelling prose Roberts produces a case for the defence that, ultimately, is impossible to gainsay. The great man has found in Roberts a worthy biographer. He has written a superbly nuanced portrait of a complex, likeable and never less than fascinating character that will stand as a benchmark for a generation.’
Saul David, Evening Standard

‘Never before has the scope and sweep been encapsulated so cogently in a single volume. Napoleon fought more than 60 pitched battles, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Borodino among them, and blow me down with a feather if Andrew Roberts doesn’t give an account of every single one, with maps, diagrams and in prose of much wit and total clarity. … Napoleon was banished 4,400 miles away to the humid island of St Helena, where it was so damp his playing cards stuck together unless kept in the oven — one of the typical small details that makes Roberts’s book an epic joy.’
Roger Lewis, Daily Mail

‘Is another long life of Napoleon really necessary? On three counts, the answer given by Andrew Roberts’s impressive book is an emphatic yes. The most important is that this is the first single-volume general biography to make full use of the treasure trove of Napoleon’s 33,000-odd letters, which began being published in Paris only in 2004. Second, Mr Roberts, who has previously written on Napoleon and Wellington, is a masterly analyst of the French emperor’s many battles. Third, his book is beautifully written and a pleasure to read.’
The Economist

‘Roberts’s fine book encompasses all the evidence to give a brilliant portrait of the man. The book, as it needs to be, is massive, yet the pace is brisk and it’s never overwhelmed by the scholarly research, which was plainly immense. … He suggests looking at Europe for the Emperor’s monument, but this magnificent biography is not a bad place to start.’
Bernard Cornwell, Mail on Sunday

Taking as its bedrock 10,000 largely unpublished letters (he wrote 15 a day), Andrew Roberts’s impressive Napoleon the Great stands as a laudatory obelisk to the unknown moody soldier with a craving for suicide who ended the French Revolution, gave France a new constitution and was crowned Emperor. In a well-marshalled narrative, Roberts defends his hero against those who accuse Napoleon of being a compulsive liar: “Who hasn’t embroidered the details of a good story to improve its effect?”
Nicholas Shakespeare Daily Telegraph Best Biographies

“Perhaps the best way to think of this book is as a view – essentially positive – from inside the imperial entourage. Roberts has been indefatigable in tracking down memorabilia and visiting the sites of battles, palaces and places of exile. This is all richly depicted and woven into a narrative that is told with the aplomb of an accomplished historical storyteller. For a fast-paced and comprehensive narrative, told with affection and sympathy, many readers will want to turn to Napoleon the Great. It is a book that sets out for a new generation exactly why he mattered and will continue to matter so long as people argue about faith, and property, and kings, and the future of Europe.’
Mark Mazower, The Guardian

‘Magisterial and beautifully written … A richly detailed and sure-footed reappraisal of the man, his achievements – and failures – and the extraordinary times in which he lived.’
Jeremy Jennings, Standpoint

‘Roberts … writes with great vigour, style and fluency.’
Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times

‘Impressive’
Alan Forrest, British Journal of Military History

‘Andrew Roberts begins his entertaining and deeply forensic examination of Napoleon by teasing us, somewhat coyly, about where he is going to go with these arguments. … Roberts is also not a man to stay in his study – he has walked 53 of Napoleon’s battlefields, experiences that have made descriptions of battle as lively, fresh and vivid as any you can find in the canon. Roberts not only brings the Napoleon story up to date but, with new evidence from the archives and an original spin on the present, makes a compelling case for why we should all read anew about the little Corsican in the 21st century.’
Andrew Hussey, The Observer

‘Every aspect of Napoleon gets a mention in more than 900 well-illustrated pages, from the great battles and political decisions to the minutest details of his love life.’
William Doyle, Financial Times

‘Roberts tells his story with vigour and aplomb. And even critics of the emperor will recognize that there is much new information in Roberts’s 814 pages, while the frequent complaint that is made of a tendency among authors to foreshorten the military narrative is not suitable here.’
Charles Esdaile, Literary Review

‘Andrew Roberts’s NAPOLEON THE GREAT enters a crowded field and rides, with the greatest verve, to the front.’ Frederic Raphael, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year