About five years ago, I convinced my wife to take a trip to the Gettysburg battlefield. I never had been there and wanted to go, and it’s within driving distance of where we live in New Jersey. Before we left, I had her read THE KILLER ANGELS by Michael Shaara just so she wouldn’t be entirely lost when I started blatting about Devil’s Den, Little Round Top and Cemetery Ridge.

This is not because it’s the best book written about Gettysburg. Even a quick look at the top listings on Amazon tells you that there are a number of excellent, top-drawer books on the Gettysburg battle --- those by Bruce Catton, Shelby Foote, MacKinlay Kantor and James McPherson, just for starters. There are illustrated guides, battlefield companions, photographic essays, regimental histories, memoirs and novels galore. You could spend weeks reading them all. But most of us don’t have that kind of time, and if you want to read just one book about Gettysburg and get a good idea about what the battle was like, you could do far worse than THE KILLER ANGELS.

"[I]f you were going to read only one book about the Battle of Waterloo, I can’t see why you wouldn’t pick up Cornwell’s. It is an outstanding treatment of a great battle, geared towards readers who appreciate an engrossing story that is well told."

Here, Bernard Cornwell is writing about Waterloo, and chances are there’s been at least as much ink spilled over Waterloo than Gettysburg, if not more. WATERLOO is his first nonfiction effort. (A prolific novelist, he previously had written a Richard Sharpe novel about Waterloo.) The book is specifically designed for readers who may not have the most astute grasp of the Waterloo campaign, which is a nice way of saying “Americans.” It is full of beautiful maps, photos and paintings, all of which help to orient us to the action on the battlefield. Cornwell takes the time to walk us through such mysteries as the intricacies of the table of organization, the importance of the reverse slope, and the advantages and disadvantages of the cavalry charge.

Overall, the experience of reading WATERLOO is delightful --- the rough equivalent of a battlefield tour with a friendly, helpful, extremely knowledgeable guide. Cornwell’s enthusiasm for Waterloo is infectious, and he walks readers through the intricacies of the individual battlefields with aplomb. It also boasts a diverse and entertaining cast of characters, and Cornwell takes delight in introducing us not only to the principal leaders but also to the foot soldiers and artillerymen who fought, bled and died on the field.

Cornwell has a vast amount of experience in writing about Wellington’s armies, all of which is put to good use here. As a novelist, his gift is that he can reduce even the largest battle to the essential conflict --- that point on the field where individual daring and valor can change the fortunes of war. Writing about Waterloo allows him to tell the story about the big picture of the battle, putting all the different pieces into place and setting them on the field. But those big maneuvers all depend on small moments --- closing the gate of a besieged house that served as a makeshift fort, keeping an infantry square together during a cavalry onslaught, driving Napoleon’s Old Guard into a panicked retreat. Cornwell is superb at telling these stories and then weaving them back into the narrative of the battle.

It almost certainly would be wrong of me to say that WATERLOO is the best book written about the battle. Reviewers who have criticized it point out that it is not particularly scholarly or groundbreaking, which may be perfectly true. But if you were going to read only one book about the Battle of Waterloo, I can’t see why you wouldn’t pick up Cornwell’s. It is an outstanding treatment of a great battle, geared towards readers who appreciate an engrossing story that is well told.