Richard Bourke’s Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton, £30.95) is a monument of exact scholarship and careful reflection, by a long way the best book that we have on this profound and much misunderstood politician and philosopher.
For those who want more thunder than even Burke can offer, Rory Muir’s Wellington: Waterloo and the Fortunes of Peace, 1814–1852 (Yale, £30) completes the author’s outstanding two-volume biography. Finally, Penguin Classics confirms its reputation for range and eclecticism with Magna Carta, with a superb commentary by David Carpenter (£10.99); and Wellington’s Military Dispatches, edited by Charles Esdaile, which is full of the great man’s laconic put-downs and provides an excellent companion volume to Muir’s biography (£9.99).