Napoleon Bonaparte by J.M. Thompson the Book

¶ … Napoleon Bonaparte" by J.M. Thompson

The book entitled "Napoleon Bonaparte" by J.M. Thompson is a biographical and detailed account on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte from childhood until his last days as an exiled citizen in St. Helena and eventual death. The book is chronologically divided into important places wherein Bonaparte had influenced the society with his control and leadership and military power. Thompson's discussion of Bonaparte's life is map-like: each nation discusses his feats and development as a ruler and leader. The first chapter concerns his childhood, roots, and origin in Corsica; the man's development as a fighter at a young age of 16; Bonaparte's eventual plan to colonize and rule on Malta; and his ascent as the Consulate of a newly-established regime in France. Under his rule as the Consul of France, Bonaparte implemented various policies in France such as the implementation of the Code Napoleon or civil code, the economic system of coinage for better trade transactions under his provisional government, the establishment of a more powerful regime through the formulation of the Legislature, Senat, Tribunat, and Corps legislative.

Napoleon's increasing control and power is illustrated even during his childhood, wherein Thompson illustrated Corsica and its people as the following: "There a brave and resolute nation has now for upwards of six and thirty years maintained a constant struggle against the oppression... Corsicans are now on the eve of emancipating themselves forever from a foreign yoke" (2). This passage illustrates Bonaparte's future rise to power as he became the greatest military leader of Europe during the latter 18th and early 19th centuries. Corsicans have been for a long time subjected to foreign rule, and the events surrounding this small nation before Bonaparte's birth presents a prelude to the future of this nation, wherein the greatest military leader of France and of the whole world will be born. Bonaparte's questionable nationality and origins are also discussed in the biographical work, which questions whether Bonaparte may have been of Italian or Greek ancestry. Nevertheless, his roots proclaim nobility in Corsica, and his birth as French citizen also foreshadows the fact that he will become one of France's leaders: "Napoleon... was a French citizen... And like St. Paul, he was always proud to say, 'I was born free'" (5). Thompson's narrative is an irony of what the future holds for Bonaparte: his being a French citizen escapes him from the bondage most Corsicans have been subjected to; however, this fact is ironic in that Bonaparte will eventually subject France and other European nations into bondage.