Why Did Napoleon Conquer History Instead of Studying It?

David Senra, reading the chapter on the conquest of history in The Mind of Napoleon, says Napoleon conquered history rather than studied it. Napoleon wanted from history, and kept from it, only what could add to his ideas. He spurned what was of no use and seized conclusions that pleased him. History was a prompt for his own thinking, not an instruction manual.

Learning, as Senra puts it on this passage, is a change in behavior, not memorized information. Napoleon changed some behavior from what he took from Alexander, and in other cases let ambition consume him. The book says nations and individuals alike learn only from their own experience, and most of the time from misfortunes, so most people do not learn from history. Senra compares the habit to an athlete watching game tape. Napoleon was copying traits he wanted and avoiding a fate he did not want.

Alexander had barely outgrown boyhood when, with a handful of men, he conquered a portion of the globe. Everything was calculated deeply, carried out audaciously, and managed wisely. On the next page, a leader in Egypt in 1250 spent eight months praying when he should have spent them marching, fighting, and consolidating his hold on the country.