This volume is a supplement to the editor's earlier A Documentary Survey of Napoleonic France (UPA, 1994) and contains 25 additional letters, laws, decrees, treaties, and miscellaneous policy statements illustrative of administrative and governing norms and methods in the Napoleonic dictatorship. Inspired by John Hall Stewart's A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution, this book will appeal to English-speaking undergraduate and graduate students of Napoleonic France, professors with specialties or interests in that area, and general Napoleonic "buffs."

The economic history of revolutionary France is still a neglected area in studies of the Revolution of 1789. Whilst some attention has been given to the condition of the peasants, the urban working classes and the financial crisis of the Ancient Régime, there has been a general tendency to regard economic factors as external and somewhat peripheral to the truly political nature of the Revolution. This book is designed to redress the balance, providing a clear, accessible, and thought-provoking guide to the economic background to the French Revolution. Professor Aftalion analyses the policies followed by successive revolutionary assemblies, examining in detail taxation, the confiscation of church property, the assignats, and the siege economy of the Terror. He shows how decisions taken in 1789 by the Constituent Assembly inevitably led to a deepening financial and economic crisis, and to increasingly radical and disastrous policies. The study is important also for its exposure of many of the economic fallacies propounded both at the time by many Frenchmen and later by many modern historians.

This invaluable account provides an excellent introduction to the nature and mechanics of Napoleon's power, and how he used it. It explores Napoleon's rise to fame as a soldier of the French Revolution and his aims and achievements as first consul and emperor during the years 1799-1815.

This illustrated A–Z encyclopedia provides easy access to information about the emperor Napoleon. Over 300 entries cover significant events, people, and other topics such as the principal Napoleonic campaigns, all the major battles including Waterloo and Austerlitz, Napoleon's most important generals and marshals, Josephine de Beauharnais, and the Napoleonic Code. Napoleon also includes primary source documents, a handy chronology of key events, a bibliography, and an index.

"This new edition of Mason and Rizzo's anthology is a welcome addition to the study of the revolutionary and Napoleonic French Atlantic. It includes a wealth of documents related to life in metropolitan and colonial France from the middle of the eighteenth century through the Napoleonic Consulate as well as concise section overviews that detail experiences on the continent and in Saint-Domingue, France’s wealthiest Caribbean colony, during this tumultuous era. These features, along with images, maps, and a detailed timeline, provide an invaluable resource for scholars and students alike." —Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss, Texas A&M University

Hegel called him an idea on horseback, a description that suggests Napoleon Bonaparte's complexity, as well as the extent to which he changed France, Europe, and the world. Napoleon has been called a visionary, a pragmatist, a cynical opportunist, an ogre, and a demigod. Here, he is described in his own words and the words of his contemporaries: from his clannishness to his knack for being at the right place at the right time, and from his genius to his obsession with detail. Napoleon brought order out of the chaos of the French Revolution, pressed for revolutionary equality of opportunity, and planned a European union. In the process, he knew peace for only 14 months of his 15-year reign, marched his armies from Lisbon to Moscow, and caused the deaths of millions. In this resource, a detailed timeline, maps, illustrations, biographical sketches, and primary documents help students get a feel for the brief but enduring Age of Napoleon.

Napoleon promoted and honored great men throughout his reign. In addition to comparing himself to various great men, he famously established a Legion of Honor on 19 May 1802 to honor both civilians and soldiers, including non-ethnically French men. Napoleon not only created an Irish Legion in 1803 and later awarded William Lawless and John Tennent the Legion of Honour; he also gave them an Eagle with the inscription “L’Indépendence d’Irlande.” He awarded twenty-six of his generals the marshal’s baton from 1804 to 1815, and in 1806, he further memorialized his soldiers by deciding to erect a Temple to the Glory of the Great Army, modeled on Ancient designs. From 1806 to 1815, Napoleon had more men interred in the Panthéon in Paris than any other French leader before or after him. In works of art depicting himself, Napoleon had his artists allude to Caesar, Charlemagne, and even Moses. Although the Romans had their legions, Pantheon, and temples in Ancient times and the French monarchy had their marshals since at least 1190, Napoleon blended both Roman and French traditions to compare himself to great men who lived in ancient and medieval times and to recognize the achievements of those who lived alongside him in the nineteenth century. Analyzing Napoleon’s ever-changing personal cult of “great men,” and his recognition of contemporary “great men” who contributed to European or even human civilization and not just French civilization, is original. While work does exist on the French cults of Greco-Roman antiquity and of “great men” prior to 1800, Napoleon appears only fleetingly in other discussions of the cult of great men. None of the bourgeoning historiography adequately takes Napoleon’s place in the story of this cult into perspective. This book serves as a further exploration of the cult of great men, including its place in Napoleonic and European history and the alleged efforts of its members to enlighten the earth.

Napoleon had a profound impact on the development of both France and Europe, and his career had repercussions across the wider world. His career had all the elements of a classical tragedy: having begun with spectacular military and civil achievements, it ended in exile on the tiny Atlantic island of St Helena. Almost two centuries after Napoleon’s death, historians continue to argue about his aims, his achievements and his legacy. In this thoroughly revised and updated new edition, Clive Emsley brings these historiographical debates up-to-date, and broadens his study to include discussion of the cultural and social impact of the Napoleonic era. This new edition: offers a succinct summary of Napoleon’s career examines his impact on France and Europe, as well as including a new chapter on the impact of the Napoleonic adventure on the wider world considers the relationship between Napoleon and the French Revolution outlines the difficulties in assessing his career explores the current debates surrounding Napoleon contains an expanded selection of primary source documents, ranging from state papers to police reports. A Chronology, Glossary and Who’s Who of key characters are also provided, making this an indispensable textbook for students of nineteenth-century French and European history.

This book examines the transformation of the French military profession during the momentous period that saw the death of royal absolutism, the rise and fall of successive revolutionary regimes, the consolidation of Napoleonic rule and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after the Empire’s final collapse. Crossing traditional chronological boundaries, it brings together periods in French history that are usually treated separately and challenges established views of change and continuity during the Age of Revolution. Based on a wealth of archival sources, this book is as much a social history of ideas like equality, talent, and merit as a military history.

Women workers and the revolutionary origins of the modern welfare state In May 1790, the French National Assembly created spinning workshops (ateliers de filature) for thousands of unemployed women in Paris. These ateliers disclose new aspects of the process which transformed Old Regime charity into revolutionary welfare initiatives characterized by secularization, centralization, and entitlements based on citizenship. This study is the first to examine women and the welfare state in its formative period at a time when modern concepts of human rights were elaborated. In The Origins of the Welfare State, Lisa DiCaprio reveals how the women working in the ateliers, municipal welfare officials, and the national government vied to define the meaning of revolutionary welfare throughout the Revolution. Presenting demands for improved wages and working conditions to a wide array of revolutionary officials, the women workers exercised their rights as "passive citizens" capaciously and shaped the meanings of work, welfare, and citizenship. Looking backward to the Old Regime and forward to the nineteenth century, this study explores the interventionist spirit that characterized liberalism in the eighteenth century and serves as a bridge to the history of entitlements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.