The role of Britain in the world was transformed by the Napoleonic conflict. By the time France declared war in 1793 the British empire was in decline; it had lost its North American colonies a decade earlier. But after Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 Britain emerged as the world's pre-eminent superpower. How did it overcome its previous setbacks to inflict a crushing defeat on Napoleon's France? Historians have tended to explain this in terms of military and naval strategy. But "Britain against Napoleon", a new book by Roger Knight of the University of Greenwich, argues that Britain was just far better at organising its war effort.
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