This Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ 1804 portrait of Napoleon shows him as a civilian officer instead of an invading hero. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Liège, France “Ah, if it were only to be done over ...

As only French biographers can do, every conceivable motive and alternative scenario is presented at every stage in the astonishing rise of the subject from the petty and parvenu and rather ...

Andrew Roberts' big, meticulously researched and very readable Napoleon: A Life is aimed at the general reader, but will appeal particularly to those who already know the essentials of his story.

David A. Bell, Napoleon: A Concise Biography (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 152 pp., $18.95. Michael Broers, Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny (New ...