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Posted: |
Apr 16, 2018 - 6:26 AM
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By: |
Tall Guy
(Member)
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Waterloo: The Aftermath by Paul O'Keefe. very interesting, with lots if personal accounts and details.
Wanderer, I bought this today in the York Waterstones. It had better be good...
It's ace! Let us know what you think.
Finished it now. It was a game of two halves for me - the first part with the battle details and reactions of some spoilt socialites being ghoulish about the spilt blood I found a little unengaging, to be honest, and really nothing that I hadn't read before. However, when the immediate aftermath was done and the politics and intrigue kicked in as to what to actually DO with Bonaparte I was absolutely fascinated. There are no living eye-witnesses to Waterloo as far as I can gather so all this had to be taken from contemporary accounts and re-distilled into an order that suited the author's intentions. That bit was a triumph.
Napoleon's stay on HMS Bellerophon was described in comic-pathetic detail, and I'd like to read Maitland's memoirs of the event, from which O'Keefe no doubt drew some of his inspiration.
I'd have liked it to carry on, in fact, and thought I had many more pages to enjoy, but it finished all too soon, the rest of the book being given over to copious references and source footnotes. First part of the book, 7/10. Second part, 10/10.
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I'm currently reading the Bible (yes, all of it, beginning to end), various trade magazines and the comic book series "iZombie" by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred.
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Waterloo: The Aftermath by Paul O'Keefe. very interesting, with lots if personal accounts and details.
Wanderer, I bought this today in the York Waterstones. It had better be good...
It's ace! Let us know what you think.
Finished it now. It was a game of two halves for me - the first part with the battle details and reactions of some spoilt socialites being ghoulish about the spilt blood I found a little unengaging, to be honest, and really nothing that I hadn't read before. However, when the immediate aftermath was done and the politics and intrigue kicked in as to what to actually DO with Bonaparte I was absolutely fascinated. There are no living eye-witnesses to Waterloo as far as I can gather so all this had to be taken from contemporary accounts and re-distilled into an order that suited the author's intentions. That bit was a triumph.
Napoleon's stay on HMS Bellerophon was described in comic-pathetic detail, and I'd like to read Maitland's memoirs of the event, from which O'Keefe no doubt drew some of his inspiration.
I'd have liked it to carry on, in fact, and thought I had many more pages to enjoy, but it finished all too soon, the rest of the book being given over to copious references and source footnotes. First part of the book, 7/10. Second part, 10/10.
oh good stuff, yah i was disappointed to find about 900 pages of references at the end.  I ended up buying another book about Napoleon: Napoleon 1814: the Defence of France by Andrew Uffindell ever read that one, TG?
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I'm pretty new to this era so I think that's why I liked the start if t'other book better than you. It conjured up battlefield imagery u wasn't expecting and the brutality was astonishing.
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I'm currently reading the Bible (yes, all of it, beginning to end)
No spoilers, please, Nic.
Yes, thank you! I should stay off the net until I'm done.
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I'm currently reading the Bible (yes, all of it, beginning to end)
No spoilers, please, Nic.
Yes, thank you! I should stay off the net until I'm done.
Don't want to give away any revelations about the ending.
That's nice of you. Though I have already seen the Michael Bay film, so I know it's gonna be fire and fury and explosions and Liv Tyler or something like that.
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There are no living eye-witnesses to Waterloo as far as I can gather so all this had to be taken from contemporary accounts and re-distilled into an order that suited the author's intentions.
No living witnesses to a battle that occurred only 203 years ago? I smell a conspiracy. Sort of like all the witnesses to the Kennedy assassination dying early.
Yeah Bob..and all those Russian journalists falling off roofs and slipping out windows etc etc
No government involvement. None. Just one of those wacky coincidences.
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Closed minds. Empty minds.
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Beatles vs. Stones
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