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    The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape
    Unavailable
    The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape
    Unavailable
    The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Part forensic investigation, part dramatic jailbreak adventure, Mark Braude's The Invisible Emperor is a gripping narrative history of Napoleon Bonaparte's ten-month exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba

    In the spring of 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated. Having overseen an empire spanning half the European continent and governed the lives of some eighty million people, he suddenly found himself exiled to Elba, less than a hundred square miles of territory. This would have been the end of him, if Europe's rulers had had their way. But soon enough Napoleon imposed his preternatural charisma and historic ambition on both his captors and the very island itself, plotting his return to France and to power. After ten months of exile, he escaped Elba with just of over a thousand supporters in tow, landed near Antibes, marched to Paris, and retook the Tuileries Palace—all without firing a shot. Not long after, tens of thousands of people would die fighting for and against him at Waterloo.

    Braude dramatizes this strange exile and improbable escape in granular detail and with novelistic relish, offering sharp new insights into a largely overlooked moment. He details a terrific cast of secondary characters, including Napoleon's tragically-noble official British minder on Elba, Neil Campbell, forever disgraced for having let "Boney" slip away; and his young second wife, Marie Louise who was twenty-two to Napoleon's forty-four, at the time of his abdication. What emerges is a surprising new perspective on one of history's most consequential figures, which both subverts and celebrates his legendary persona. The Invisible Emperor is both a riveting story and an original examination of how preposterous, quixotic, and grandiose ideas can suddenly leap from the imagination and into reality.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 9, 2018
    ISBN9780525640158
    Unavailable
    The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape

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    Reviews for The Invisible Emperor

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Most of us are familiar with Napoleon Bonaparte's history of war and conquest. Once he was banished in 1814, to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean our interest in him tends to wain until he once again shows up in France in 1815, looking for a fight. This book details that year of exile and I do mean details. The author gives an almost day by day depiction of what it was like for Napoleon during his time on this less than idyllic island. Napoleon, the man who achieved domination of over half of Europe was relegated to a tiny island and it's lack luster community that had nothing to recommend it. A couple of hundred pages into the book I was as ready to get off that island as was Napoleon. Even the comings and goings of his various family members and any number of visiting sycophants could not dissuade Napoleon from fomenting a plan to get the heck off that island and back to France no matter what the consequences might be. The author has done a fine job of documenting this time of Napoleon's life and gives us some good insights into the man and his times. Book provided for review by Amazon Vine.