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Patrice Gueniffey is the leading French historian of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic age. This book, hailed as a masterwork on its publication in France, takes up the epic narrative at the heart of this turbulent period the life of Napoleon himself, the man whoin Madame de Stals wordsmade the rest of the human race anonymous. Gueniffey follows Bonaparte from his obscure boyhood in Corsica, to his meteoric rise during the Italian and Egyptian campaigns of the Revolutionary wars, to his proclamation as Consul for Life in 1802. Bonaparte is the story of how Napoleon became Napoleon. A future volume will trace his career as emperor. Most books approach Napoleon from an anglethe Machiavellian politician, the military genius, the life without the times, the times without the life.