Wellingto: The Iron Duke

This was a gift for my mom and she loved it... said it was a very interesting book!

This is an excellent book, one of my favourites. Richard Holmes does not hide the fact that he is an admirer of Wellington. But why not? He is one of the greatest people in British history. He was by no means perfect, for example his involvement in the Connvention of Sintra, the treatment of his wife Kitty, etc and he was often supported by his connections, for instance his brother Richard in India or his friendship with Castlereagh when he was foreign secretary. But who is perfect? Who hasn't used those around them? What I really love is that in this day and age Wellington is still someone to look up to and to be inspired by. He is not controversial and has stood the test of time. After the success of Waterloo he had the great success of the Catholic Emancipation and was the one who finally talked the Lords into voting through the Great Reform Act (although he did initially appose it). This isn't a complete biography of Wellington, and would recommend further reads such as Elizabeth Longford or Rory Muir to top up the knowledge. In summary, read this book! Great subject matter and very well written.

I have studied Napoleon for a good while yet this is the first biography I have ever read about the Duke of Wellington. Mr. Holmes does a good job of going through all of Wellington's life without getting into nitty gritty details. The book is roughly 200-250 pages and covers all of Wellington's life from his birth, the campaigns in Flanders, India, Spain, Waterloo, and his prime ministry. The military campaigns are covered in adequate detail, enough to know what happened, but not enough to confuse the reader or draw a military thesis statement from. The same goes with regards to his session as prime minister. So bottom line is if you are looking for a good book on the Duke that is an easy read and covers his whole life in a concise single volume, I strongly suggest this one.

The authors knowledge is prodigious, and I did appreciate the author’s goal of bringing forth the “real” Wellington, who by the end, and I don’t think this a spoiler alert, still remains a hero for all time, and an amazing human being. However, and it may be the fact I purchased the e-book version (no illustrations, etc) but the tone seemed at times unduly scholarly, where the sentences and paragraphs, even the chapters, seemed to run on so that the material became almost a disconnected blur. After a while. This is in contrast to the style of the author’s introduction and conclusion — too bad he didn’t write like that throughout…. Still, a great job and I appreciated it. I recommend it.

Inhaltlich einwandfrei aber leider ein billig gemachter Nachdruck von amazon, was nicht ersichtlich war beim Bestellen. Abbildungen haben schlechte Qualität, Details sind nicht zu erkennen. Schon das zweite Mal, dass ich beim Aufschlagen eines neuen Buches merkte, dass es nicht das Original des Verlags sonderm ein Nachdruck von Amazon ist. Das nenne ich Etikettenschwindel und Betrug!