No other soldier has provoked as much anger or as much fervour as Napoleon Bonaparte. Was he a monster, driven on by an endless, ruinous quest for military adventure or was he a social and political visionary, brought down by petty reactionaries clinging to their privileges?Charles Esdaile s major new work reframes our understanding of Napoleon. Napoleon s Wars looks beyond the insatiable greed for glory to create a new, genuinely international context for Napoleon s career. The battles themselves Esdaile sees as almost side-effects, the consequences of rulers being willing to take the immense risks of fighting or supporting Napoleon risks that could result in the extinction of entire countries and regimes.