From his childhood olive groves in Corsica to his final garden on St Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte took time to fully engage with nature. Believing himself a patron of the sciences and progress, he nonetheless unleashed an era of destruction and war, causing millions of deaths across Europe. Featuring 16 pages of illustrations, Ruth Scurr's perceptive cultural history shows us Napoleon through the eyes of those who knew him best—as an emperor hunting for glory, and a man in an old straw hat, leaning on his spade.

"Glorious…. Scurr has achieved something remarkable: a completely original book on a completely unoriginal subject. But then she is herself a truly remarkable writer, one of the most gifted non-fiction authors alive."—Simon Schama