“Robert Morrissey’s brilliant The Economy of Glory is a literary and cultural history of glory in France, focused on Napoleon, but taking in a great deal more. It engages profitably with cutting-edge cultural and literary history of the period, and it adds a great deal to our understanding of the history of glory in general, Napoleon’s regime, and the literature written in Napoleon’s shadow. This book is an enormously original, sophisticated, and beautifully written piece of work.”

David Bell, Princeton University

“In this intellectual epic, which charges across centuries and cultures, Robert Morrissey shows how, in Napoleonic times, glory was not simply a selfish pursuit, but the very spring of a regime struggling to synthesize revolutionary equality and aristocratic distinction.”

Dan Edelstein, Stanford University

“Napoleon is usually seen as marking a break with the past and as heralding a glorious new beginning. But, as Robert Morrissey shows in this absorbing study—beautifully translated from French by Teresa Lavender Fagan—Napoleon’s assertive modernity drew strength in great part from his strategic use of France’s glorious past. The concept of glory, gloire, has deep roots in the heroic traditions of Ancien Régime aristocracy, and by reinventing it in a meritocratic mould, it became possible in the Napoleonic era to bridge the political divide between Ancien Régime and Revolution. This is a study less of Napoleon the man than of his function within the French cultural landscape; as such, this brilliant analysis of the ‘Napoleon effect’ will be of interest to scholars of modern France as well as to those of the Ancien Régime.”

Nicholas Cronk, University of Oxford

 “A fundamental addition to the scholarship on the Consulate and the First French Empire. . . . The Economy of Glory is a necessary read for French scholars.”

Nineteenth-Century French Studies

“The Economy of Glory is a gift to all readers interested in the endlessly fascinating Napoleonic saga, an erudite though never pedantic journey through the French past, seeking to uncover the lineage of glory, that quintessential Napoleonic attribute. . . . One closes [this book] with the grateful feeling of having been part of a sparkling, learned conversation. . . . The elegant and deeply thought out reflections on the development of key French cultural concepts make this essay a pleasure to read and a valuable contribution to our understanding of Napoleon’s profound imprint on the French cultural consciousness.”

H-France Review