What’s it about?: The knowledge and intuition of Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution.
My opinion: Napoleon was a sociopath who restored slavery, abandoned his own army (twice), posed as a revolutionary while working as an autocrat, over-centralised the state, was an enemy of trade, lied in his war reports (even when he won), among other things. You might say this is ad-hominem. Well, what’s wrong with that? If an author is going to purport to share hard-won practical wisdom, then I want to know what is behind their words. Attacking the person before the argument would be entirely appropriate for this kind of text.
Or maybe I really am being unfair. I will concede that it is interesting to get a glimpse into the mind of such a historical figure, this book just didn’t captivate me the way that Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War or Clausewitz’s On War did. Those I would recommend so much more. But if you’re interested in Napoleon on any level, give it a go.
And that’s my opinion on Napoleon’s Military Maxims.
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Lawrence Deveney 