Waterloo Campaign June 1815

Review

Reviewed by Peter Hofschröer

by Albert A.Nofi. Published by Greenhill Books at £ 18.95.

The first question I always ask myself when I hear of a new book on the Waterloo Campaign is "do we need another book on Waterloo?". After having read this book, I found myself asking the question again. Whilst, with certain exceptions, modern British works on military history, tend to attain certain levels of mediocrity, American works tend to either be scholastically excellent or very poor indeed. Mr. Nofi's work is sadly not of scholastic excellence.

Anybody writing on this subject today needs a working knowledge of at least English, French and German. Judging by the numerous spelling mistakes of French and German words in this text, it would seem that Mr. Nofi has problems with languages other than English, moreover, when writing on a subject as contentious as the Waterloo Campaign, it would be advisable to quote one's sources, preferably in the form of foot or chapter notes. Mr. Nofi fails to do this, producing a text which contains a number of statements which are suspect but cannot be checked. There is a lack of clarity in much of his commentary and the reader is left with the impression, possibly mistaken, that the author has not done his homework but is trying to bluff his way convincingly through a pre-graduate essay in the hope that his teacher is not paying attention to what has been written.

In short, this work is inadequately researched, poorly written, not well presented and not really of any use to anyone. One wonders why a publisher like Greenhill, having recently produced works of the high standards of "With Eagles to Glory" and "1812 The march on moscow" has bothered even to look at Nofi's "Water-loo", let alone publish it. It is best avoided.

Not recommended.

Reply: Letter to Editor

More Reviews

Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #18
Back to First Empire List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1994 by First Empire.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com