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Why Napoleon’s ‘theft and vandalism’ served the public good Two new books about Napoleon sideline his military achievements to present him as a gardener – and an art thief 5 May 2021 • 5:17pm Detail of Antoine-Jean Gros s 1796 portrait Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole Credit: Fine Art Images/Diomedia Images From time immemorial, victorious warriors have come home laden with booty. Ancient Rome institutionalised this in the triumph, and the French Revolution legitimised it according to the rationale of the day: since Paris was the cradle of what was to be a new universe, it should, for the benefit of mankind, gather to itself the fruits of all the arts and sciences. ....
Laura O’Brien assesses recent work on his life and legacy. Two hundred years after his death, what more is there to say about Napoleon Bonaparte? He remains a perennially popular subject for works of history aimed at the general reader, whether conventional biographies or more specialised studies on aspects of his life, regime and cultural legacy. If, as the Napoleonic historian Philip Dwyer suggests, writing a biography is like holding up a mirror for a contemporary readership, who is the Napoleon that is reflected back at us in 2021? The work of Napoleonic biographers has been made somewhat easier in the past two decades thanks to the publication, with the support of the Fondation Napoléon, of 15 volumes of Napoleon’s correspondence (the final volume appeared in 2018). This material underpins many of the biographies published in recent years. Chief among these are the multi-volume works by Philip Dwyer, whose final volume in his trilogy, ....