Type of bind: Hardcover
Label: HARPER & ROW
Manufacturer: HARPER & ROW
Page Count: 548
Printing Date: January 01, 1969
Publishing house: HARPER & ROW
Sale Popularity Level: 125641
Studio: HARPER & ROW
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Elizabeth Longford's 1969 biography "Wellington: The Years of the Sword" may still be the most balanced portrait of the First Duke of Wellington in his years on active service as an officer in the British Army. Longford is blessed with a highly accessible prose style and an intimate understanding of the class system and social mores of the world in which Wellington lived. Her extensive acess to Wellington's personal correspondence permits remarkable insight into his personality, revealing a more complex human being than the stiff, stoic leader of other biographies.
What emerges is a portrait of Wellington as, first, a dreamy and shallow young man, then a young and ambitious military officer, and finally as the mature and highly professional general who defeated Napoleon's Marshals in Portugal and Spain, and Napoleon himself at Waterloo.
Longford's coverage of Wellington's battlefield exploits is episodic and in no more detail than that required to advance the narrative and to provide examples of Wellington's leadership style. Where Longford excells is in her insights into the development of Wellington's character. She captures the challenge of Wellington's youth as the middle and seemingly least-talented of several children. She provides a balanced description of Wellington's ambition for opportunities to shine in the British Army in India. She is properly skeptical of some of the accounts of Wellington's alleged womanizing, while her discusion of the Duke's unhappy marriage to Kitty Pakenham is marked by emotional depth and nuance. Longford notes throughout the book the continuing influence of Wellington's family on his development as a person and and on his military career.
This book and a second volume, "Pillar of the State", on Wellington's career in government and politics post-Waterloo are both unfortunately long out of print but continue to influence more recent biographers.
This book is very highly recommended as an excellent and still relevant biography of the First Duke of Wellington's youth and career on active service in the British Army.
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