The battle on Sunday 18th June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium was to be Napoleon's greatest triumph – but it ended in one of the greatest military upsets of all time.

Waterloo became a legend overnight and remains one of the most argued-over battles in history. Lord Wellington immortally dubbed it ‘the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life,’ but the British victory became iconic, a triumph of endurance that ensured a 19th century world in which Britain played the key role; it was also a defining moment for the French, bringing Napoleon I’s reign to an end and closing the second Hundred Years' War.

Alongside the great drama and powerful characters, Jeremy Black gives readers a fascinating look at where this battle belongs in the larger story of the tectonic power shifts in Europe, and the story of military modernisation. The result is a revelatory view of Waterloo’s place in the broader historical arc.

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‘A splendidly lucid account that places the Battle of Waterloo squarely in its proper historical context.’ Andrew Roberts

‘A wonderful example of a micro-history of one battle, re-contextualised as a decisive battle in the history of Europe but also, and more crucially, as a landmark in the history of warfare.’ Military History Journal

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Jeremy Black is professor of History at the University of Exeter and is one of the world's leading military historians. The author of over seventy books, especially on eighteenth century British politics and international relations, Black graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge, and did postgraduate work at St Johns and Merton at Oxford.