Napoleon and Wellington

Mr. Roberts talked about his book Napoleon and Wellington: The Battle of Waterloo--And the Great Commanders Who Fought It, published by Simon and Schuster. Mr. Roberts presents this book as is neither a joint biography of Napoleon and Wellington nor a history of the Peninsular or Napoleonic Wars but instead as a study of the personal relationship between the two men that concentrates on what each man thought, wrote and said about the other. The book reports Wellington’s and Napoleon’s recorded thoughts, conversations, and writings about each other and various reports of what contemporaries remembered hearing. The book also focuses on “the three battles” in which the two principals were engaged: the battle of Waterloo (a victory for Wellington), the battle of their funerals ("the honours about evenly divided"), and their “third and final battle--the struggle for primacy in their posthumous reputations.” close