You should read about Napoleon. He was actually a pretty decent ruler. This is by no means an endorsement of authoritarian rule “so long as it’s the right ruler”. But when you look at the what existed before and what came immediately after, I believe he’s unfairly maligned.
My impression is he didn’t know when to stop. He could have had a much longer lasting rule of a decent sized territory, but he never stopped spending tens of thousands of soldiers lives on expansion.
You should read about Napoleon. He was actually a pretty decent ruler. This is by no means an endorsement of authoritarian rule “so long as it’s the right ruler”. But when you look at the what existed before and what came immediately after, I believe he’s unfairly maligned.
My impression is he didn’t know when to stop. He could have had a much longer lasting rule of a decent sized territory, but he never stopped spending tens of thousands of soldiers lives on expansion.