Napoleon: The Film, The Man, The History
Revolutionary Left Radio
Breht O'Shea
4.8 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2023
⏱️ 94 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Everett from The Age of Napoleon and Arjun from Deep into History join Breht to discuss Napoleon Bonaparte. Together they explore and reflect on the new film by Ridley Scott, the actual history involved and what the film got wrong, Napoleon's real personality, the importance of the French Revolution in Napoleon's rise, the reaction to the French Revolution and Napoleon from the rest of Europe, Napoleon's treatment of Haiti, Napoleon's exile and death, and then they grapple with the question of how the socialist left today should view and understand Napoleon.
Outro Song: Napoleon's Hat by Bright Eyes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. We have a really fun episode for you today. We have on Everett rummage from the podcast Age of Napoleon and we have back on the show |
| 0:14.9 | Arjun Handal from deep into history to talk about the recent Ridley Scott film Napoleon. |
| 0:21.3 | We talk about the film, we offer our criticisms of the history depicted in the film, |
| 0:25.0 | what we liked about the film, and then we zoom out and have a much broader conversation about |
| 0:29.6 | French and European history, about the French Revolution, about Napoleon as both a figure and a betrayer of the |
| 0:36.8 | revolution or as he saw himself the pinnacle of it. |
| 0:40.3 | We talk about the Haitian Revolution and how Napoleon reintroduced slavery in the French colonies, |
| 0:46.0 | but also on the other side how he pushed against the rotting core of feudalism and monarchism throughout Europe |
| 0:51.8 | and sort of dragged the rest of feudal and monarchical Europe by the hair into |
| 0:56.7 | political modernity. So Napoleon is a fascinating character and the history that swirls around him and that that lifted him into the position that he got into is all fascinating as well and we dive deep into it with two lovers of history that I couldn't ask for better collaborators on an |
| 1:15.1 | episode like this. Also want to remind people that we have a relationship with |
| 1:19.2 | our friends over at Chris Blevladeb and left-wing books that anybody who listens to Rev Left, you type in Rev Left at |
| 1:27.0 | checkout and you can get any of their books 15% off. |
| 1:31.3 | It's a really wonderful opportunity to bring down the price of some of these books |
| 1:35.8 | and make it more affordable for Rev Left listeners. |
| 1:38.4 | And the link that I'll provide in the show notes actually allows you to even bypass having to type anything in. You just |
| 1:43.7 | click that link, pick your book 15% off for Rev Left listeners. So shout out to |
| 1:48.3 | left-wing books, really appreciate the collaboration that we're doing with |
| 1:52.2 | them and how they're allowing |
| 1:53.7 | Rev left listeners to get really interesting books of political left-wing |
| 1:57.6 | history theory at a cheaper price so go check them out. But without further |
| 2:02.0 | ado here is my fascinating conversation with Everett and Argin on the film, |
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