Napoléon and the Birth of a Nation

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Napoléon and the Birth of a Nation
https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844605.book.part.034

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Abstract

While he is well known as a military legend and charismatic leader, Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) can also be considered the founding father of nineteenth-century nationalism. In France, this meant fulfilling the promise of the French Revolution and its emphasis on the people as the locus of sovereign power in a new political arrangement in which liberty, equality, and fraternity replaced the aristocratic prerogatives of the “ancien regime.” Elsewhere, it meant any number of results, from complete independence to strong opposition to French expansion.

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