Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles. By Bernard Cornwell. William Collins; 352 pages; £25.
Waterloo: Four Days that Changed Europe’s Destiny. By Tim Clayton. Little, Brown; 588 pages; £25.
Waterloo: The Aftermath. By Paul O’Keefe. Overlook; 392 pages; $37.50. Bodley Head; £25.
WITH the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo fast approaching, the publishing industry has already fired volley after volley of weighty ordnance at what is indeed one of the defining events of European history. About that, there can be no argument. Waterloo not only brought to an end the extraordinary career of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose ambitions had led directly to the deaths of up to 6m people. It also redrew the map of Europe and was the climax of what has become known as the second Hundred Years War, a bitter commercial and colonial rivalry between Britain and France that had begun during the reign of Louis XIV. Through its dogged resistance to France’s hegemonic...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1HwHW8w
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