Went The Day Well? Witnessing Waterloo
In case you've missed it, the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo is nigh. As is always the case with major historical anniversaries, major historical hoopla has begun. The first commemorative articles have already appeared. Reenactment groups are preparing a grand scale reenactment--5000 reeanctors, 300 horses, 100 cannons, a gazillion spectators.* And new books on the battle are flooding into history bloggers' mailboxes.
David Crane opens his history of the Battle of Waterloo by referencing Bruegel's painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, in which farmers plough their fields unaware of the boy falling from the sky. He offers the image as a metaphor for the way most people experience historical events--and as the basic idea behind Went The Day Well?: Witnessing Waterloo.
On June 18, 1815, Britons knew Napoleon, having escaped from Elba Island, was on the move across Europe. They had no idea that the final battle of the Napoleonic Wars-- which was the defining event for a generation--was underway. This disjunction is the heart of the book.
The first section of the book is an hour-by-hour account, from midnight to midnight, of the Battle of Waterloo. Crane moves back and forth between Britain and Belgium, using diaries, newspapers and letters to look at both the battle and mundane details of that day in England as experienced by poets, radicals, foot soldiers, officers and paupers. He introduces readers to a factory boy, a soon-to-be-widowed bride and a Gothic novelist-cum-travel writer determined not to miss the most thrilling event of her time. The second, much shorter, portion of the book considers the aftermath of the battle, both for the individuals who appear in the prior section and for Britain as a whole.
Went The Day Well? is an unusual and illuminating account of Waterloo that will appeal to fans of the Napoleonic Wars and Regency history buffs alike.
* When we were in Belgium several years ago I actually thought about trying to attend this for about two insane moments.** Instead I'll make do with the official reenactment website.
**Those of you who know me in real life and have watched me hyperventilate about the crowds at the Chicago Blues Fest--or Home Depot on a Saturday afternoon--are howling with laughter at the thought.
The heart of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
History in the Margins Has a Birthday–and a Giveaway
It's hard to believe, but we've been hanging out here on the Margins for four (4!) years. It started as an experiment; it's turned into a conversation. I'm honored that you read. I feel even more honored when you respond, whether it's in the form of a comment here, an email, sharing a link to a post on Twitter, or talking back to your computer screen. Over the last four years you've expanded on the topic, asked questions, recommended books, given me ideas, and, on one occasion, administered a well deserved smack on the wrist.* Thank you.
Since it wouldn't be a birthday party without presents, I have a handful of books to give away.** If you want your name to be put in the mid-sized mixing bowl, leave a comment or send me an e-mail before June 1. Tell me what kind of history you like to read, what period calls your name, who your historical hero is, or which of these books calls your name:
Cynthia Stokes Brown. Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present.
Richard Davenport-Hines. Voyagers of the Titanic: Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From.
Elizabeth de Waal. The Exile's Return.
Darrin M. McMahon. Divine Fury: A History of Genius.
TWO COPIES:Nicola Phillips: The Profligate Son, or, A True Story of Family Conflict, Fashionable Vice, and Financial Ruin in Regency England.
At the risk of sounding like a presidential candidate,here's to four more years!
*Scroll down to the comment by Wyatt. It's worth reading. Wyatt, if you're still reading, I want you to know I've used your comments as a touchstone ever since.
**Six books, six chances to win.,
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Ballpoint–The Tale of a Tool
Like many readers, writers, and scholars, I am an unashamed office supply junkie. I trail through my local Office Depot with the same delight I accord to grocery shopping* and only slightly less fascination than I feel in my local independent bookstore. (Go Seminary Co-op!) I like my pens to have a fine-point and my notebooks to be college-ruled. I've never met a specialized pad of paper that didn't catch my imagination and I hoard my stash of hard-to-find summary paper.
I always knew that ballpoint pens were a relatively modern invention, but I never knew how we made the leap from fountain pen to ballpoint.** I found the answer in György Moldova's Ballpoint: A Tale of Genius and Grit, Perilous Times, and the Invention that Changed the Way We Write.
Although his work is little known in English, Moldova has been Hungary's best-selling author for more than forty years. In Ballpoint, Moldova tells the story of two other notable Hungarians largely unknown in the west: Lázló Biró and Ander Goy, the inventors of the ballpoint pen.
The story of the pen's development is interesting in itself, beginning with Biró life as a Jewish journalist in interwar Budapest, frustrated by a leaking fountain pen. Biró's technical difficulties and triumphs are told in a clear, non-technical manner. His search for financial partners is an object lesson in understanding legal documents before you sign them.
But what really makes the book is Moldova's use of Biro and Goy's story as a lens through which to view the troubled history of Hungary in the mid-twentieth century. Biró escaped from fascism by fleeing first to Paris and then to Buenos Aires. Once in Buenos Aires, he traded increasingly large percentages of the rights to his as-yet-undeveloped pen for help in getting his family safely out of Hitler's Europe. His erstwhile partner and fellow inventor, Goy, remained in Hungary. He prospered under fascist rule, but lost everything when the new communist government nationalized his company. By the end, both partners had lost their rights to the pen as a result of financial deceptions and legal chicanery.
It makes me wonder if there's a heroic story behind the invention of, say, the stapler.
*That is not sarcasm. I love grocery stores--ethnic, mainstream, or neighborhood bodega. Just ask My Own True Love, who patiently accompanies me to grocery stores, farmers' markets, spice shops, and cheese emporia wherever we happen to be.
**I had a brief and inky flirtation with dime store fountain pens when I was ten or so. As far as I'm concerned, the romance of the ink bottle is dead.
The guts of this review appeared many moons ago in Shelf Awareness for Readers.