Napoleon And Hitler Analysis

But what of the United States’ attitude? After all, the guiding anecdote behind this essay has been formed over years of American socialization, so it would only be appropriate to question the veracity of my claims. In “Napoleon and Hitler,” Steven Englund, an American, discusses the purportedly common conflation of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler. In his essay, Englund’s tone towards Napoleon is altogether chastising, but he does make a clear point to differentiate the two leaders, stating, “The fact that l’Empereur [Napoleon] halted the headlong course of the Revolution … does not make him a counterrevolutionary, any more than the fact that Hitler ‘radically’ altered the German polity and society make him a revolutionary” (156). His argument is that Napoleon is indeed reprehensible in retrospect but not purely evil. However, Englund’s claims of reprehensibility should be called into question when common—and inaccurate—hearsay is stated as fact. He paints Napoleon as a force of

Regardless of who writes the biographies and reflections—whether by its winners or its losers—shifts in values over time make objectivity difficult. Without sufficient education on a subject, one manages by rumors and hearsay; but upon learning of a humanizing anecdote, one then realizes that the monster he or she had expected is complicated and, perhaps, redeemable. In the case of Napoleon Bonaparte, however, there are many parties involved in his discussion who hold many opinions and write many books to prove them. The French, as is expected, look up to the man who both won them their revolution and brought their country into a golden age. The British, however, warred with Napoleon, taking every precaution necessary to assassinate his character despite the growing favor of his progressive republicanism and human rights sympathies. But the American perspective, most interestingly, is a seeming second-hand result of British