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The Battle: A New History Of Waterloo
Alessandro Barbero
A New History of Waterloo
Walker & Company
June 2006
On Sale: June 13, 2006
340 pages
ISBN: 0802715001
EAN: 9780802715005
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
At Waterloo, some 70,000 men under Napoleon and an equal
number under Wellington faced one another in a titanic and
bloody struggle. In the end, as John Keegan notes,
contemporaries felt that Napoleon's defeat had "reversed the
tide of European history." Even 190 years later, the name
Waterloo resounds. Italian historian Alessandro Barbero's majestic new account
stands apart from previous British and French histories by
giving voice to all the nationalities that took part.
Invoking the memories of British, French, and Prussian
soldiers, Barbero meticulously re-creates the conflict as it
unfolded, from General Reille's early afternoon assault on
the chateau of Hougoumont, to the desperate last charge of
Napoleon's Imperial Guard as evening settled in. From
privates to generals, Barbero recounts individual miracles
and tragedies, moments of courage and foolhardiness,
skillfully blending them into the larger narrative of the
battle's extraordinary ebb and flow. One is left with
indelible images: cavalry charges against soldiers formed in
squares; the hand-to-hand combat around farmhouses; endless
cannon balls and smoke. And, finally, a powerful
appreciation of the inevitability and futility of war.
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