The 1802 Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot was part of Napoléon’s effort to retake Haiti − then known as Saint-Domingue − and reestablish slavery in the colony.
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Leaving out the history of Napoléon’s brutal subjugation of Haiti is akin to making a movie about Hitler without mentioning the Holocaust.
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Ridley Scott’s film is not intended to paint a romanticised image of Napoleon, but rather immerse the viewer in the dilemmas and complexities of power.
Apple TV+ via AP
Napoleon has unleashed a torrent of objections to the film’s historical errors. More important for historians should be whether creative works pass the test of authenticity.
Kevin Baker/Apple TV+ via AP
Joaquin Phoenix is a great Napoleon. How have other films treated France’s most famous man?
Josephine with her hair in the coiffure à la victime style in Napoleon.
LANDMARK MEDIA/Alamy Stock Photo
A shorn haircut known as the coiffure à la victime, paid tribute to guillotined prisoners whose hair was loped off before execution.
Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix as Josephine and Napoleon.
Courtesy of Apple
A historian explains what the relationship between one of the most famous couples in history was really like.
Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon.
Courtesy of Apple
Here are the truths behind some of the major scenes from Ridley Scott’s new Napoleon biopic.
An abandoned and disabled Russian tank.
Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images
A military strategist breaks down how a smaller Ukrainian army has successfully taken back swaths of land from the Russians in the country’s northeast.
A Ukrainian inspects a ruined Russian tank displayed on the streets of Kyiv.
Thomas O'Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Displays of captured Russian weaponry aim to show the strength of the foe Ukrainians face, but also that victory is possible.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
Commemorations have slowly become more muted over the years due to the racist and misogynistic aspects of his rule
Suez canal: a key trade route since the mid-19th century.
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
Britain’s preoccupation with the canal was as much about controlling Egypt as it was about global trade.
Patients of the Imperial asylum at Vincennes celebrate Emperor Napoléon III.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 19th-century France, even photographs of hospitals and bridges could become propaganda.
Iconoclasm: the beheading of the English king, Charles I, in January 1649.
The polarisation of today’s political discourse has echoes of the intolerance that characterised the Puritan era and the French Revolution.
The poet in a picture by Gustave Courbet.
Wikimedia Commons
His legacy connects a great swathe of modern popular culture.
The Seine and Notre Dame, physically and spiritually the heart of Paris.
Iakov Kalinin via Shutterstock
From coronations to Revolution to reconciliation, Notre Dame has witnessed nearly 900 years of French history.
A Soviet-era stamp depicts a scene from Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace.’
Wikimedia Commons
Set during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, the epic novel is a case study in the grassroots strength of ordinary people.
Striking at the heart of the French Republic.
Terror on July 14 is a clear rejection of the values of the French Republic.
MASH TV cast.
Wikimedia Commons
The story of an amazing man you have probably never heard of.
Napoleon victorious at the 1805 Battle of Austerlitz.
François Gérard via Wikimedia Commons
A historian responds to Boris Johnson’s claim that the EU is pursuing a powerful super-state, like Hitler.
Blockade of Toulon by Thomas Luny.
Wikimedia Commons
The British blockade of France wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t for an ingenious experiment conducted half a century earlier.