Now a major BBC2 television series, awarded the Prix du Jury at the Grands Prix de la Fondation Napoléon 2014. By Andrew Roberts, the author of the Sunday Times bestseller "The Storm of War," this is the definitive modern biography of Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte lived one of the most extraordinary lives of all time. In just twenty years, from October 1795, when he liberated the streets of Paris from insurgents as a young artillery officer, to his ultimate defeat in the disastrous Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon transformed France and Europe. After seizing power through a coup, he ended the corruption and incompetence that had plagued the Revolution. In a series of brilliant battles, he reinvented the art of war; in peace, he completely reformed the laws of France, modernized education systems and administration, and ushered in a golden age of beauty.