HÀ NỘI — The Vietnamese version of the book Napoleon: The Great, a New York Times bestseller written by veteran British historian and journalist Andrew Roberts, was presented to the Vietnamese public in Hà Nội on Wednesday.

The book was translated from English into Vietnamese by Lê Đình Chi and published by Omega Việt Nam Books. With more than 1,000 pages, it is believed to be the best-ever book about Napoleon published in Việt Nam.

“I dreamt of publishing this book in Vietnamese because I have deep admiration for this great man and a great interest in French history,” Nguyễn Cảnh Bình, president of the book company, said.

“To write this book with more than 1,000 pages about this fascinating and mysterious personality, Andrew Roberts conducted more than 1,000 interviews,” he added.

The book is a definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman, written by Roberts, the New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of War -- winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography and the Grand Prix of Foundation Napoleon.

The launching ceremony of the Vietnamese version of the book Napoleon: The Great, was held at l’Espace, the French Cultural Centre in Hà Nội, on Wednesday.

Following years of study, including visits to St Helena and 53 of Napoleon’s 56 battlefields, Andrew Roberts created a portrait of the mind, the life, the military and above all the political genius of a fundamentally constructive ruler.

The book is expected to satisfy the Vietnamese people, who are interested in history and in knowing more about the life of this emperor of France. Austerlitz, Borodino and the Waterloo battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and an astute leader of men.

Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one of the greatest soldier-statesmen of all times.

Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to make use of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation.

Through the book, readers see him for what he was: a protean multi-tasker, decisive and surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine. Like Churchill, he understood the strategic importance of telling his own story, and his memoirs, dictated from exile on St. Helena, became the single bestselling book of the nineteenth century. — VNS