Taking a Closer Look at Napoleon Bonaparte

The essential question for our lesson on Napoleon is as  follows, "What was Napoleon's impact on the social, economic, and political systems of Europe?" The first thing we did on class to learn about Napoleon was watching the short five minute video below.





While watching this video, we were asked to write down the places that Napoleon conquered. We came up with a long list by the end that included places like Egypt, Austria, Prussia, Italy, etc. We soon realized that Napoleon was very successful in his conquests. Then we took a look at two different views on Napoleon.

From thew two views we learned that Napoleon was someone to be admired because he was able to keep thousands of people in his army over the years and was a brilliant military strategist, but that he should also be guarded against because he has so much greed that fuels his conquest. Marshal Michel Ney refers to Napoleon as "our august emperor". Madame de Stael believes that Napoleon is a cunning tyrant.

 Lastly, we took a look at this image above and highlighted what Napoleon did that made an impact on the whole world and on France. (pink= France) (orange= world)

From this, it was clear to see how Napoleon impacted the areas in the Essential Question.

He impacted the social system in a positive way by giving more people access to education and the rights to property. He also impacted the political system in a positive way by his ideas of meritocracy which rewarded people based on their talents and not because of their social rank. Lastly, he impacted the economic system in a positive way by stimulating industry and removing trade barriers. He also was able to steal money from Italy, and created the Bank of France which involved having a budget system and massive public work systems. Upon first glance, Napoleon may seam like a greedy man who just wants all of the power in the world, which is true to an extent,but taking a closer look shows how Napoleon was able to impact France in positive ways.