Title: Skimpy, sloppy, disappointing
Review: I am reading War and Peace and sorely need to know something more about Napoleon, an important figure in the story. This book is little help, only reinforcing my superficial notion of the man as a pint-sized, peculiar megalomaniac. Other disappointed reviewers offer passages that get their points across; I'll add the one in which the author describes a scene from Napoleon's marriage to princess Marie-Louise. "She was slow. Impatient as ever, he would hustle her along, slapping her broad rump and saying, 'Get a move on!'" An author who can cook up that sort of unsupported nonsense isn't to be trusted with the history of great nations. And his hyper-nationalistic disregard for the French people is odious, saying that the entire population are "amateurs d'art, intellectuals, or at least pseudo-intellectuals."
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