In these pages, acclaimed historian David Crane gives us an astonishing,
intimate snapshot of the people and places surrounding the battle that
changed the course of world history. Switching perspectives between
Britain and Belgium, prison and palace, poet and pauper, husband and
wife, Went the Day Well? offers a highly original view of Waterloo,
showing how the battle was not only a military landmark, but also a
cultural watershed that drew the line between the rural, reactionary age
of the past and the urban, innovative era to come. Lyrically rendered in
Crane's signature prose style, this essential account freeze-frames the
ordinary men and women of 1815 who went about their business, attended
lectures, worked in fields and factories--all on the cusp of a new,
unforeseeable age.