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This new study of Napoleon emphasizes his ties to the French Revolution, his embodiment of its militancy, and his rescue of its legacies. Jordan´s work illuminates all aspects of his fabulous career, his views of the Revolution and history, the artists who created and embellished his image, and much of his talk about himself and his achievements.

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The cliché that Napoleon was the gravedigger of the French Revolution has no basis in fact. While he was no democrat and he held the people in contempt, this book argues that Napoleon saved the work of the Revolution, albeit unintentionally. After Waterloo the triumphant allies dismantled in their territories almost everything about the Revolution they hated; but it proved too deeply rooted in France to be destroyed. The centralized state, the legal codes, religious toleration, a constitution, careers open to talent, equality before the law, even the seeds of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly, all endure to this day. The fabulous military career of Napoleon put the Revolution on horseback, as his contemporaries recognized, and his lust for conquest ultimately was his downfall. His creative work and his reforms remained - Napoleon fixed in law, in institutions, and men´s dreams what the Revolution had failed to preserve in such durable ways.

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Preface Acknowledgements Prologue: Napoleon and the French Revolution Becoming a Revolutionary First Revolutionary Steps Italy the Imperial Revolution Egypt Power Entr´acte: Revolution and Empire The Weapons of Revolution Entr´acte: A Sighting in Jena Napoleon at Zenith Entr´acte: Napoleon and the Political Culture of the French Revolution Catastrophe and Decline Entr´acte: Napoleon Explains the Revolution Napoleon Brought to Bay Ending the Revolution Entr´acte: Reputation The End of the End Game Death and Rebirth Epilogue: Napoleon and the Revolutionary Tradition Appendix: Some Remarks about Arsenic Poisoning Notes Bibliography

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DAVID P. JORDAN was born in Detroit, Michigan and educated at the University of Michigan and Yale University, USA. He is the author of books on Edward Gibbon, the French Revolution, and Paris, is a passionate chamber music player and lives with his wife and daughter in Chicago, where he taught for many years.

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