A short and vivid biography, which deconstructs the Napoleonic myth and reveals the reality of his rule. Written with great wit and panache, this biography also has a serious purpose: to make us face up to the moral bankruptcy of Napoleon's dictatorship.

Johnson tells the whole story:

• his astonishing gift for figures and calculation, his mastery of cannon;
• his audacious, hyperactive and aggressive generalship and his simple battle tactics;
• his complete control of propaganda and the success of the cultural presentation of the Empire;
• the Code Napoleon;
• his failure as an international statesman, as Europe grew to hate him;
• his marshals and ministers;
• his wives, mistresses, personal style and working methods;
• the British blockade and the Continental System;
• the mistakes in Spain and Russia.

The escape from Elba, the events leading up to Waterloo and the battle itself, which gets a full treatment, is particularly riveting.