The Battle of Waterloo: A New History
UK £14.99,
UK Publication May 2010
ISBN 9781848311558
Hardback
Buy: | Waterstones| Book Depository
The battle on Sunday 18th June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium was to be Napoleon's greatest triumph - but it ended in one of the greatest military upsets of all time.
Waterloo became a legend overnight and remains one of the most argued-over battles in history. Lord Wellington immortally dubbed it 'the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life', but the British victory became iconic, a triumph of endurance that ensured a 19th century world in which Britain played the key role; it was also a defining moment for the French, bringing Napoleon I's reign to an end and closing the second Hundred Years' War.
Alongside the great drama and powerful characters, Jeremy Black gives readers a fascinating look at where this battle belongs in the larger story of the tectonic power shifts in Europe, and the story of military modernisation. The result is a revelatory view of Waterloo's place in the broader historical arc.
Black sets this battle in the context of warfare in the period, and not only that of Napoleonic Europe. He also uses Waterloo to explore the changing nature of war, the rise and fall of Napoleon's empire, and the influence of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars on the 19th century.
Drawing on all the latest scholarship, Jeremy Black brings this thrilling story - and the world in which it is set - vividly to life.
'Jeremy Black ought to be a National Treasure ... he deserves far more public recognition. The sheer quality of his output ought to have marked him out as one of our great historians' Andrew Roberts
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Jeremy Black ought to be a National Treasure... the sheer quality of his output ought to have marked him out as one of our great historians' Andrew Roberts
‘A splendidly lucid account that places the Battle of Waterloo squarely in its proper historical context.’ Andrew Roberts
‘This is Jeremy Black at his best. Well researched and clearly written, the book makes a convincing case for both Waterloo as a major victory against tyranny and the remilitarization of military history by restoring the study of combat.’ Dennis Showalter
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Jeremy Black is professor of History at the University of Exeter and is one of the world's leading military historians. The author of over seventy books, especially on eighteenth century British politics and international relations, Black graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge, and did postgraduate work at St Johns and Merton at Oxford.
See more books by: Jeremy Black
