Napoleon in America: Bonaparte and the Rhetoric of US Empire

How Napoleon’s legacy infused American debates over empire in the nineteenth century

No individual dominated the early nineteenth century like Napoleon Bonaparte, the titanic figure who came to embody the French Revolution and nearly brought all of Europe to heel. He exerted a cultural influence in his time that few figures in world history have ever attained. As a result, when Americans debated the merits, limits, and administration of their own burgeoning republican empire, they continual...