The French Fuhrer: Genocidal Napoleon was as barbaric as Hitler, historian claims

[Steel God]

What is it with historians these days? Are they so indoctrinated with political correctness that they are no longer capable of viewing events through the lens of the age in which they occur? We are constantly bombarded with "historians" and "academics" who wish to go back 200 years and judge men, nations, and actions through the lens of the 21st century. We can agree that such things are horrible without putting on our holier than thou hats of the 21st century. To condemn Napoleon as a genocidal maniac because of Slave policies and programs he enacted in the closing years of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th century when the rest of the "civilized" world was doing likewise is revisionism, pure and simple. England did not abolish slavery until 1833, and did not emancipate until 1838. The French did abolish slavery in 1794 but it's during the height of the Revolution, and it, like so much else, was lost in the passions of excess the Revolution spawned. It was mad legal again in 1796, in large part because of the revolt in Haiti, which had been going on since 1791, three years before it was outlawed. Slavery in America was not abolished until 1865. Slavery in Brazil lasted until 1888! Slavery as a practice was a gruesome and horrible period in human history, and it wouldn't be stamped out completely on a national level until almost 100 years AFTER Napoleon. But to judge Napoleon for his treatment of slaves like he was acting in a vacuum is nonsense. He was a man of his age, and a man of genius.

Likewise, and perhaps more disturbing, is the effort to diminish the horror that is Hitler by comparing him to Napoleon. While Napoleon was a man of his age, and guilty of the crimes and excesses that the ages of empires produced, Hitler does not have that excuse. His dark dreams, while having their roots in another age, were committed in the middle of the 20th century, 100 years removed from European slavery and it's excesses. To attempt to drag Napoleon down to Hitler's level diminishes the horrors Hitler perpetrated as a goal of his nation and his government.