Napoleon Bonaparte dominated the public life of Europe as no other individual before him since Charles V in the 16th century. Not surprisingly, the story of the man and his life has usually swamped those of the time and the place. This book is an effort to redress the balance. It is an attempt to see the Napoleonic Empire from an entirely new perspective: that of the ruled, rather than the ruler. Michael Broers concentrates on the experience of the peoples of Europe - particulary the vast majority of Napoleon's subjects who were neither French nor willing participants in the great events of the period - during the dynamic but shortlived career of Napoleon when half the continent fell under his rule.