An acclaimed military historian, Knight draws on first-hand accounts to show us the reality of life for the British soldier in this era – the drudgery of peace-time service, the excitement and privations of posting overseas, the floggings and desertions, the regimental pride and comradeship. The rapid expansion of the empire saw the army fighting in small wars across the world and Knight reveals the brutal reality of this colonial conflict from both sides. British soldiers trained in tactics that had beaten Napoleon were forced to adapt when faced with warriors with very different skills fighting on their home ground.

Knight vividly recreates the action, from bloody skirmishes in Southern Africa and siege warfare in New Zealand to disasters like the 1842 retreat from Kabul and Chillianwalla in the Punjab – but shows that in reality the army won more than four-fifths of the battles they fought in this era. He describes how, by 1860 with their redcoats increasingly replaced by khaki, the British army was a more professional, efficient and increasingly ruthless fighting force.

The Crimean War one of the fiercest battles in Russia’s history, killing nearly a million men and completely redrawing the map of Europe. Pitting the Tsar’s empire against an alliance of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire, it was the first conflict to use photography, the telegraph and newspapers; a war over territory, from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf; a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populistbelief by the Tsar and his ministers that it was Russia’s task to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land; it was the original ‘total war’.

Orlando Figes’ vivid new book reinterprets this extraordinary conflict. Bringing to life ordinary soldiers in snow-filled trenches, surgeons on the battlefield and the haunted, fanatical figure of Tsar Nicholas himself, Crimea tells the human story of a tragic war.

‘Lucid, well-written, alive and sensitive, it tells us why this neglected conflict and its forgotten victims deserve our remembrance’
   Oliver Bullough, Independent

‘Figes paints a vivid portrait of a bloody and pointless conflict … he knows more about Russia than any other historian’
   Max Hastings, Sunday Times

‘A fine, stirring account’
   Mark Bostridge, Financial Times

‘A wonderful subject, on every level, and with Orlando Figes it has found the historian worthy of its width and depth’
   Norman Stone, Standpoint

‘Figes is a first-class historian, as his splendid new book amply demonstrates’
   Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph

Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Peasant Russia, Civil War, A People’s Tragedy, Natasha’s Dance, The Whisperers and Just Send Me Word. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.