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A Corsican Childhood

By Hui Wang

A Corsican Childhood

By Hui Wang

0 - Default Title
Description
A Corsican Childhood: Napoleon, is the book I wanted to write after years of seeing Napoleon Bonaparte introduced only at the moment he steps onto Europe's stage. I begin earlier, in Corsica, with Ponte Novu and the shattered world that shaped his birth. The Bonaparte family appears before power meant anything to them-Carlo Buonaparte struggling to hold the household together, Letizia Ramolino raising children in a land still bruised by war, and Pasquale Paoli looming as both hero and future rival. This is Napoleon before legend, formed in a place where loyalty, violence, and survival were learned young.From there, I follow Napoleon from Corsica to Brienne and then to the École Militaire, tracing how distance from home sharpened his sense of identity rather than softening it. At school he was poor, stubborn, isolated, and relentless. Books mattered more than friendships, discipline more than charm. When Carlo Buonaparte died, the pressure intensified, and Napoleon was forced to think less like a boy and more like the head of a family. These years explain far more about him than later victories ever could.The story then turns outward, as France itself begins to crack. I walk through France on the brink, the road to 1789, and the slow collapse of royal authority under Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Episodes like the Affair of the Diamond Necklace are not treated as court gossip, but as warning signs of a system losing credibility. Napoleon was watching all of this closely, learning how power failed, how symbols collapsed, and how public anger gathered force.When revolution arrives, I place Napoleon inside it, not above it. The fall of the Bastille, the Estates-General, and the political chaos reshape his choices. His break with Corsica and with Paoli is one of the book's emotional cores. At the same time, the royal drama unfolds in full view: the Queen on the Balcony, the Flight to Varennes, and the arrest that stripped the monarchy of its last authority. Figures like Lafayette, Mirabeau, and Necker move through the narrative, each trying-and failing-to hold events together.
Product details
Binding:
Paperback
Number of Pages:
144
Release Date:
2026-01-20
Publication Date:
2026-01-20
Publisher:
Hui Wang
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
9190150058
ISBN13:
9789190150054
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
163 g
Height:
127 cm
Width:
203 cm
Thickness:
8 cm
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