Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt.(Brief article)(Book review)

Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt NINA BURLEIGH. Harper, $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-059767-2

When 28-year-old Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, his band of 50,000 soldiers and sailors was accompanied by 151 Parisian scientists and artists, who laid the groundwork for what became Egyptology. Ten of these remarkable men are the focus of Burleigh's narrative. Among them, three of the most prominent were the lowborn, "pugnacious" mathematician Gaspard Monge, a dedicated revolutionary who invented descriptive geometry; the painfully shy chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet, who invented new ways to make gunpowder and steel; and the witty artist and …