Edward Shawcross

Upcoming historian Edward Shawcross discusses his study of the unlikely rise – and spectacular fall – of ‘the other Napoleon’, Napoleon III. 

Described by Karl Marx as “a grotesque mediocrity” and by his own father as an “adventurer, intriguer, usurper”, Napoleon III was elected President of France aged 40. Yet just three years later, he seized power to become its emperor. 

How he achieved this feat is a story of self-belief, political skill and radical innovation – Napoleon III, Shawcross argues, was the first person to master mass democratic politics and populism. Yet, despite being one of the most important trailblazers of the nineteenth century, he is largely misunderstood today, if not totally forgotten. Shawcross resurrects this bizarre and compelling figure. 

Edward Shawcross is the author of The Last Emperor of Mexico. After graduating from the University of Oxford, he lived and worked in France, then South Korea and finally Colombia before returning to London where he completed a PhD at UCL. His research specialised in nineteenth-century France.