Lecturer and Fellow at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge, Ruth Scurr is a historian, writer, and literary critic. The author of the award-winning Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, she lives in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
"Beautiful.... It is an adjustment to think of Napoleon as a
cultivator rather than as a conqueror, a planter rather than a
planner. But such ambivalences are precisely Ms. Scurr’s métier....
The mountain of biographies written about the 'Little Corporal'
must, at this point, be higher than the Alps he famously crossed in
1800, but her horticultural angle allows Ms. Scurr to tell the
endlessly fascinating story of his life anew: not as a
megalomaniac’s power-hungry ascent to temporary glory but as the
constantly frustrated reaching for the plenitude and happiness that
Joséphine’s found in her garden."
*Christoph Irmscher - Wall Street Journal*
"An elegant prose stylist, Scurr is above all a fabulous historian,
and a vivid storyteller with a novelist’s eye for engaging detail.
With the exception of the Battle of Waterloo—the most significant
fighting of which took place over a garden at Hougoumont—the wars
in this book occur largely offstage. Napoleon emerges not in his
warrior guise but in his full humanity... History’s palimpsest
emerges in these pages too, through Scurr’s accounts of modern-day
places shaped by Napoleon’s vision: while his empire is the stuff
of history books, his legacy as a landscape genius endures."
*Claire Messud - Harper’s Magazine*
"Scurr has ingeniously somehow found an entirely new prism through
which to view Napoleon... Dr Scurr takes the opportunity to
discourse on numerous aspects of Napoleon and the natural world,
and has ultimately produced a somewhat eccentric but immensely
satisfying and captivating book... 'There is always something new
to say,' Scurr says of Napoleon, 'no matter how many regiments of
biographers have marched across the same ground.' With this
charming and intelligent book about a hitherto entirely unexamined
aspect of the Bonapartist epic, she persuades us of this comforting
truth."
*Andrew Roberts - Times Literary Supplement*
"Improbably glorious and exceptionally herbaceous.... Scurr,
lecturer in history and politics at Cambridge university, 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.... Marvellous."
*Simon Schama - Financial Times*
"The Cambridge historian Ruth Scurr brings shades of subtletly and
nuance to a life well known, telling Napoleon’s story through his
love of nature and the gardens. A brilliantly original biographer
of Robespierre – briefly Napopleon’s ally – and of John Aubrey,
Scurr has attributes too often missing among her contemporaries.
She can write, beautifully : and she casts a cold eye on
proceedings, unfazed by previous adoration or condemnation of her
subject…. Grippingly original."
*Paul Lay, The Sunday Times [UK]*
"Scurr’s is an approach that pays some real dividends [of] rich
details [and] fresh perspectives."
*David Crane - The Spectator*
"Looking at Bonaparte through the lens of his passion for gardens
brings out new and fascinating details about his life, including
his love of science and engineering, his obsession with botany and
especially his desire to stamp order upon an unruly natural and
political world.... Scurr is well known for her inventive and
absorbing biographies.... A rewarding book that gives intriguing
and novel insight into a man about whom we thought everything had
already been said."
*Deborah Mason - Bookpage*
"Even readers well-versed in Napoleon’s rise and fall will learn
something new from this gracefully written and imaginatively
conceived portrait."
*Publishers Weekly*
"A diligent historian, Scurr does not ignore the wars and politics
that dominated Napoleon’s life, and she concludes with a vivid
account of the battle of Waterloo, in which the chateau of
Hougoumont, with its 'high garden walls,' played a central role . .
. A wealth of natural history and a fine Napoleon biography."
*Kirkus Reviews*
"Scurr. . . uses her signal strength as biographer. . . Scurr’s
vivid writing helps to convey a visual portrait . . . [and]
presents an unusual perspective on the life of the general."
*David Keymer - Library Journal*
"If you read just one biography this year, make it Ruth Scurr’s
brilliant and original exploration of Napoleon’s life as an amateur
gardener. Everything makes sense once you realize this was a man
obsessed with making nature go his way."
*Amanda Foreman, bestselling author of Georgiana: Duchess of
Devonshire*
"From Napoleon’s first garden as a schoolboy to his last on Saint
Helena, Ruth Scurr takes us on a journey filled with unexpected new
vistas on a familiar life. Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and
Shadows foregrounds his passion for science and love of the natural
world. The result is a refreshing, engaging read."
*Victoria Johnson, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of American
Eden*
"Ruth Scurr’s imaginative take on Napoleon’s life serves up
fascinating insights into the man’s behavior and motivations, as
well as an illuminating account of those around him. The gardening
angle is fresh and perfectly developed; to garden is to control and
manipulate, an empire builder does the same."
*Penelope Lively*
"It is hard to find fresh things to say about Napoleon, but Ruth
Scurr has managed it. . . . No one interested in Napoleon will fail
to discover here something unknown or unexpected."
*William Doyle, professor emeritus of history at the University of
Bristol and author of The Oxford History of the French
Revolution*
"A pleasure to read. . . . Ruth Scurr’s sharp perception opens new
vistas in the extensive landscape of Napoleon’s boundlessly curious
mind."
*Sue Prideaux, author of I Am Dynamite! A Life of Nietzsche*
"Ruth Scurr gives us a captivating, original perspective on a man
too often simplified as a glorious—or vainglorious—emperor on
horseback. Her sparkling book reminds us of Napoleon’s human
frailties and, above all, that he was also a man of science
fascinated by the order, diversity, and richness of the plant
world."
*Peter McPhee, author of Liberty or Death: The French Revolution*
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