Waterloo Witnesses

The events of Sunday, 18 June, stand as the defining moment of the year 1815, if not of an entire era. The allied victory over Napoleon’s French army at the Battle of Waterloo reshaped governments and boundaries, made or broke fortunes and touched thousands of lives in ways both large and small, and it has been analysed, dissected and refought on paper a hundred times. Perhaps, though, the very best words ever written about that momentous campaign are the first-person accounts recorded as events unfolded. It is these vivid accounts that Kristine Hughes has collected together in order to convey the hopes, fears and aspirations of their authors. They inject the story of the battle with a level of humanity that reclaims it from the realm of legend and restores it to the people who witnessed it. In chronological order her work pieces together a novel view of the battle and events surrounding it as they were experienced by both military men and civilians. The result is a fascinating and varied picture of the individuals involved and the society of the period. Their words make compelling reading.

The history you don’t know is the most fascinating of all. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Waterloo, Ontario, could be any small Canadian community. Its familiar histories privilege the “great accomplishments” of those who built the institutions we know today: industry, government, and education. But what of those who were marginalized, weird, and wonderful — real people who lived between the boundaries of mainstream existence? Waterloo You Never Knew reveals forgotten and little known tales of a community in transition and reflects on those lives lived in infamy and obscurity, by choice or design. Meet the rumrunner, the ex-slaves, and the cholera victims, the grave-digging doctor, the séance-loving politician, and the sorcery-practising healer. Come inside. See the Waterloo you never knew, revealed.

Relive the excitement of one of history's most famous battles with this gripping eye-witness account of the three days of the Battle of Waterloo. With vivid descriptions of the action and firsthand insights into the strategies and personalities of the Allied forces, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in military history. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

From the Wolfson Prize-winning author of God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain Between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851, history changed. The grand narratives of the Enlightenment, concerned with kings and statesmen, gave way to a new interest in the lives of ordinary people. Oral history, costume history, the history of food and furniture, of Gothic architecture, theatre and much else were explored as never before. Antiquarianism, the study of the material remains of the past, was not new, but now hundreds of men - and some women - became antiquaries and set about rediscovering their national history, in Britain, France and Germany. The Romantic age valued facts, but it also valued imagination and it brought both to the study of history. Among its achievements were the preservation of the Bayeux Tapestry, the analysis and dating of Gothic architecture, and the first publication of Beowulf. It dispelled old myths, and gave us new ones: Shakespeare's birthplace, clan tartans and the arrow in Harold's eye are among their legacies. From scholars to imposters the dozen or so antiquaries at the heart of this book show us history in the making.