The Age of the Durants

By Stephen Schlesinger

THE AGE OF NAPOLEON by WILL and ARIEL DURANT 872 pages. Simon & Schuster. $17.50.

Will and Ariel Durant seem to be a permanent natural resource. They have produced eleven bestselling history books in 40 years, spanning the birth of man and following his progress right up till the French Revolution. The Durantian success derives from a unique digest of research, humor, intimate anecdotage and headlong energy. But the once inexhaustible Will, now 90, and his wife Ariel, at 77, have announced that this is their valedictory volume.

The Age of Napoleon focuses on one of the most complex and ideologically riven epochs in history. Unfortunately, it is a period that fits awkwardly into the Durants' Procrustean formula. Merely to introduce Bonaparte into destiny's pages requires a recapitulation of the entire French Revolution. The Durants compress that cataclysm to 152 pages--an entertaining but misshapen account. The causes of the infamous Terror are summed up in a brief section, leaving the reader reeling under a scattershot assault of dates and statistics. The guillotine devours French leaders at such a bewildering pace that the list of names often reads like a body count, not a narrative. Later chapters pondering the fate of other European nations influenced by Bonaparte's power -- England, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Spain and Germany -- swell with so many scenes, leaders and wars that the reader is wearied by the sheer flow of words.

Deep within this overly ambitious work, however, are some brilliant descriptions of the Durants' central figure.

Of the Emperor's appetite for eminence, the authors write: "History was for him, as for Carlyle, a worship and rosary of heroes, especially those who guided na tions or molded empires. He loved Plutarch even more than Euclid; he breathed the passions of those ancient patriots, he drank the blood of those his toric battles."

Vivid Portrait. The question of whether Napoleon was a Corsican, a Frenchman or the first true European leader evokes a vivid Durant portrait:

"He was Cesare Borgia with twice the brains, and Machiavelli with half the caution and a hundred times the will. He was an Italian made skeptical by Voltaire, subtle by the ruses of survival in the Revolution, sharp by the daily duel of French intellects." The historians dis play such artistry too sparingly. Still, these most popular popularists are incapable of writing a dull book or a trivial one. The Age of Napoleon is not their best book, but it is their last. Readers can mourn that statement -- and celebrate the fact that the Durants have contributed so much to the American under standing of that most foreign country, the past.

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