Napoleon in Egypt

by Paul Strathern

Book Overview

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte, only twenty-eight, set sail for Egypt with 335 ships, 40,000 soldiers, and a collection of scholars, artists, and scientists to establish an eastern empire. He saw himself... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553806785
• ISBN13: 9780553806786
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

High Adventure!

The author conveys the drama and adventure of the young Napoleon and his army in Egypt. The prose can't help but grip the reader, even a reader who knows the outcome of the stories, battles and adventures will keep turning pages. The author describes and documents his take on Napoleon's motives and the political pressures on him. He describes how he acquired his resources, refreshingly with facts and explanations. (The financial end of campaigns is often generalized in this type of narrative.) He follows the chronology of events with a few fittingly placed interludes that span time that give a flavor of the daily life in Cairo. He describes some of the interpersonal differences and loyalties and in the end summarizes what happened to the survivors later in their lives. By describing how the taxes were collected, how Beys paid their tributes, how "justice" was meted, how trade was insecure and thereby constrained, Strathern showed not just how the Mameluke system worked, but also how Egypt related to the Ottoman Empire. A few reviewers have noted inaccuracies but none of these will be memorable or relevant to the general reader and none changes my overall response to the work. Paul Strathern can write and bring to life the drama, tragedy and significance of the short incursion. I highly recommend this book for general readers of history.

Napoleon: Dynamite in the making

Common historical knowledge includes the awareness that Napoleon slipped out of Egypt alone, abandoning his army to the lost cause while dishonorably slinking back to France to triumphantly become--Napoleon. Not so common is the awareness of Napoleon's goal in Egypt, and how it shaped his leadership afterwards. Strathern's history does an excellent job of telling this often-neglected history: 1. Napoleon went to Egypt intent on conquering that country first, then moving eastward through the Middle East all the way to India, by land, following Alexander the Great's path through geography and history, knocking the British out of India and establishing in a land-based world empire never before or since rivaled. While hindsight suggests the impossibility of such grand goals and renders them at best laughable and at worst evidence of dementia, his plan was based on solid historical precedent that Strathern ably documents, and on Napoleon's aquaphobic leadership style (which after all served him well-enough to expand French empirical control over most of western Europe and threatened Britain's great global naval empire). And as short-lived as his victories were, Napoleon did establish tenuous control over Egypt and marched northward and eastward along the Mediterranean all the way to Acre, where a victory, he claimed, would have set up his turn to the east with a ground swell of local support, augmented with several thousand slave troops from Africa, that would have impelled him through Iran, Iraq, and on to India. In exile at the end of his astonishing but stunted career, Napoleon would claim "I missed my fortune at Acre"; he may have truly been that close to his ultimate goal. 2. Napoleon in Egypt was learning how to be a leader on his model, with ungoverned and ungovernable authority and no oversight internally or externally. The communications limitations of the time, combined with the British blockade of Alexandria and mastery of the Mediterranean more generally, left Napoleon isolated from any political guidance from the French Directory that was his putative master and oversight. The few communications that were successfully exchanged (many were captured by the British and used to devastating effect in the realpolitik of diplomacy) were colored by Napoleon's intentionally inaccurate and rose-colored generalities (he reported only what he wanted the Directory to know or believe) and the Directory's uncertainty about Napoleon's status and their fragile grasp on power back home. In this crucible of leadership, Napoleon became dynamite, figuring out how to lead and manipulate not just armies but institutes of state, church, and press to govern cities and countries. Strathern's history gets inside the sources to provide the real account of Napoleon's time in Egypt, providing reality to balance the mythic view of the French Foreign Legion marching through the desert with the pyramids looming in the background. Strathern documents some

Lively account

I enjoyed every page of this superb history. In excellent, entertaining prose we are given the reasons and context for this strange expedition, the many personalities involved, and their adventures on the way to Egypt (where they miss being intercepted by the British navy by one day!) We are then treated to a blow-by-blow account of the military encounters and political machinations that ensued on the part of Napoleon, his generals, the feeble French goverment back home, the Mamelukes, the Turks, the British, and Egypt's neighbors. The aftermath and consequences of all this are satisfyingly, often shrewdly, dealt with. This expedition eerily foreshadowed the rest of Napoleon's career. But this is not all - there are the many scientists and "savants" which Napoleon brought with him, and their groundbreaking discoveries which began Egyptology as we know it. There are wonderful accounts of daily life in Cairo at the time and the local Muslim point of view. (Another fascination for me was that reading this book, I could not help but think of the recent ill-advised U.S. invasion of Iraq, whose organizers hoped to be greeted as liberators and spreaders of enlightened government, but were instead scorned as interfering invaders by many.) This book is full of amusing details. I couldn't ask for a more clear, engaging account of this inherently interesting subject.

Napoleon on the Nile

Competently told from a Western perspective, Mr. Strathern's book provides a general overview of the famous invasion in 1798 by the French of Egypt, a harsh landscape then dominated by Mamelukes, Janissaries and Bedouins and studded with stunning relics of forgotten peoples. With military, religious, and scientific aspects, this event, organized and led by Napoleon Bonaparte, was a true clash of civilizations. Those who may still admire, if not revere, Napoleon must pause and reflect on such inexcusable atrocities as his cold-blooded order to murder some 4,000 prisoners of war after a battle in the Syrian campaign. While I assume other as good or better histories of this pivotal adventure exist, I did find this workman-like effort by Paul Strathern superior to a similar one I read by Juan Cole, entitled "Napoleon's Egypt" (2007).

An excellent work

Illustrated with maps, diagrams and photographs this book looks at Napoleon's ambitious overseas adventure... his invasion of Egypt while he was serving the Republic as a general. Fresh from his campaign in Italy, Napoleon collected a large fleet, transports and a small army, all with the consent of the Directory. His objective was to take over Egypt, which was nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire, and in doing so spread the ideals of the Revolution and to threaten British holdings in India. The author does an excellent job of discussing the practical problems involved in collecting the invasion force, the initial campaign for Egypt, Napoleon's attempts to rebuild that ancient country's social structure in accordance with his ideals of liberty and fraternity and his scientific mission to explore the land of the Pharoahs. The book is not only well-researched but it is also a gripping read. I feel that it could have done without intimate details of Napoleon's love life, but that may be just me. Otherwise, this is an excellent military and social study.