"A group biography of Pasquale Paoli, George Washington, Toussaint Louverture, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Simon Bolivar with an emphasis on charismatic leadership."-- A group biography of Pasquale Paoli, George Washington, Toussaint Louverture, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Simon Bolivar with an emphasis on charismatic leadership. Bell argues that the history of democracy is inextricable from the history of charisma. He shows how political leadership was reinvented for a revolutionary world eager to do without kings and queens. -- adapted from jacket