From prince to pauper: a dramatic overview of Britain on 18 June 1815

Of all the big battalions of books marking the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo that have come my way, this has to be the best. David Crane has used the bloody campaign as a telescope, bringing into sharp focus not just the carnage along the Brussels road, but the state of Britain itself: a country on the cusp of vast, irreversible change.

He achieves this within the compass of a single summer’s day — Sunday, 18 June 1815 — devoting a chapter to each hour and cutting cinematically between the three armies slaughtering each other in Belgium and the citizens at home. Some anxiously await news of triumph or disaster; others are utterly oblivious of what the cannonade rolling across the Channel, clearly heard by Kentish churchgoers, portends.

The result is a rich feast of a book: dramatic, poignant, funny, gruesome and tragic by turns. Crane selects a small cast to people his narrative, and involves us in their destinies without ever losing sight of the bigger picture.