A biography of Napoleon, deliberately designed to point up the deadly parallel between that dictator and Hitler, for although he shows how they are poles apart in terms of individual psychology, ""powerful social and economic forces dominating them make them similar in their historical behaviour"". Carr lets Napoleon speak for himself through his letters, laws, decrees. Beyond that, the portrait of the man, his rise to power, his fall, his exile, is more or less conventional. The many-sided aspects of his personality, as careerist, as politician, as lawgiver, as war lord, are given full play. A good piece of work, not unusual, but the topical slant given it by the author of Juggernaut makes it a timely contribution.