Black Count

Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

432 pages

English language

Published Nov. 7, 2013 by Penguin Random House.

ISBN:
978-0-09-957513-9
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (14 reviews)

5 editions

Review of 'The Black Count' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I first heard about this book from a coworker of mine. He read it several years ago and had nothing but good things to say about it. I've had it on the backburner ever since, fully intending to get to it at some point but just never managing to. This month, however, a group of fellow book friends decided to give it a shot, and I tagged along. I'm....mostly satisfied with my experience with this book! Going into it, I had previously read [b:The Count of Monte Cristo|7126|The Count of Monte Cristo|Alexandre Dumas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611834134l/7126.SY75.jpg|391568] last year and I knew very little of French history.

The entire Dumas family was super interesting to read about, with the whole take on slave ownership being turned on its head for large parts of the book. They had some progressive ideas in the beginning, even if they didn't always follow through on them. …

Review of 'The Black Count' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I am not a fan of biographies, I've read a few and always find them to be bogged down with dates and facts and references and quotes, I soon lose interest and throw the book at the dog. I needed to pick an award winner for a reading challenge and as I really enjoyed the Count of Monte Cristo I gave this one a go. Lucky break for me this is a bloody good read. Tom Reis comes across more of a detective than a biographer, as he tries to find info on the elusive General, sudden deaths of experts and strange fires makes his job that much harder. His writing style is more like a fiction writer, he takes you on a journey through the brief life of a Hercules.

One odd thing depressed me about this book, my education, my history lessons were given by a PE teacher …

Review of 'The Black Count' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Much more than I was expecting: the biography is beautiful but it’s the social context that really shook me. Reiss presents informative and powerful insights into the cultures of the time and their transformation over the course of Dumas’s lifetime: legal and ethical stances on slavery, “race”, and human rights that echo eerily in today’s world. He takes you into the insane convolutions of late-18th-century France, the bizarre legal arguments, the horrible mix of politics and business that destroyed the lives of humans based solely on their skin color. He also provides illuminating background on the conditions that led to the Terror and to Napoleon’s ascension, much of which rings depressingly true today.

As a person General Dumas seems larger than life: physically imposing, intelligent, strong, highly moral, deeply principled, courageous, kind. The sort of person, actually, we should know more about. It’s criminal that he’s been forgotten, and you …

avatar for MagneticCrow

rated it

5 stars
avatar for willadams

rated it

5 stars
avatar for cyclicircuit

rated it

5 stars
avatar for wakatara

rated it

3 stars
avatar for ish-i-ness

rated it

3 stars
avatar for darkejokero

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Jaldert

rated it

5 stars
avatar for rascalking

rated it

3 stars
avatar for erinlcrane

rated it

4 stars

Subjects

  • Generals, biography
  • Dumas, thomas alexandre, 1762-1806
  • France, history, military
  • Dumas, alexandre, 1802-1870
  • France, armee
  • France, history, 1789-1815