Hello Ask Historians. I'm a huge fan of history but a massive blindspot in my knowledge has been on the subject of Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars. I recently read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer and while I am more well versed on that period of time in history I found the thoroughness and depth of the book to be absolutely superb. The entire read was fascinating and I'm hoping to see if there is a book that is of the same quality only with a focus on Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars.
For someone who knows next to nothing about Napoleon and these wars what would you say is the most robust book on this subject that you can go into without knowing much about the conflict or the man?
Hi there anyone interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on /r/AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy, or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast/book/novel/documentary/etc, and which aren't backed up by a historian-level knowledge on the accuracy and stance of the piece, will be removed.