Napoleon in Egypt

Being an account of General Bonaparte's quixotic campaign in Egypt which began as a grandiose dream of Oriental conquest and empire and ended with his closest brush with defeat for a decade. The author is not a professional historian, but his only obvious misstep is overreliance on Napoleon's unreliable memoirs; he tells a story which is anything but a classic blood-and-thunder Napoleonic campaign very well. Given the relative lack of traditional battles and campaigns, he concentrates on such seemingly mundane topics as logistics and military government and sanitation and makes them interesting.

This is a readable and thorough discussion of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. I'm not a specialist in Napoleon by any means, so it may seem oversimplified for some of the more informed. But the writing was clear and I really got caught up in the action. The author is careful to consider Napoleon's view, that of his aides, his soldiers, and to some degree the Egyptians. If one wants a really detailed view of how Napoleon influenced African history, this book does not go into that in any detail. I read this along with some other books I'm reading about antiquities and Western museums and it really filled in some areas for me. Well-paced and I learned a lot.

Great read - would be enhanced by additional maps.

Una magnífica narración de la aventura egipcia del general Napoleón.

Desde su partida de Francia, hasta la conquista de Egipto al imperio otomano, aunque en realidad estaba bajo el dominio de los mamelucos, y de las batallas que se desarrollaron por mantener ese dominio, la destrucción de la flota francesa por parte inglesa, la campaña siria de Napoleón y su sueño de crear un imperio oriental y de llegar hasta la India.

Al final de esta aventura militar, la mayor contribución fué la del descubrimiento de la olvidada civilización egipcia para el mundo occidental, donde se empezaría a descubrir de nuevo su arte, restos arquitectónicos, cultura...