But other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play...

"The point, what ought to be the point in engorged exercises like this, isn't that Bonaparte was after all only human. It's that he was an exceptionally bad human. He was vain, pompous, arrogant, cowardly, scornful, and corrosively manipulative. He used, wasted, and discarded virtually every living thing of any species he ever encountered in the entire course of his life. He hardly ever entered a situation without making it worse for everybody involved and then blaming them for the change. The number of soldiers whose loyalty he accepted and whose lives he knowingly squandered is beyond accurate count. Considering the extent to which hagiography sells hardcovers, one doesn't expect to encounter this kind of assessment in a brick called Napoleon: A Life, so maybe readers should be grateful for any kind of critical assessment of this little monster. There are precious few such assessments in these pages. Instead, in every chapter, at every key dramatized moment, there are subtle and not-so-subtle shadings designed to exonerate this after-all-just-a-man Bonaparte."

https://openlettersreview.com/open-letters-review/napoleon-a-life-by-adam-zamoyski