Books: The Genius of Common Sense

THE DUKE: BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE & ACHIEVEMENTS OF ARTHUR WELLESLEY, 1st DUKE OF WELLINGTON —Richard Aldington—Viking ($3.75).

Among his other achievements the Duke of Wellington discovered the most astonishing thing in the world: its lack of common sense. Studying the battles of England from India to Copenhagen, and leading the armies in the ones that England won, he was all the more aware of that lack of common sense for a reason that neither his friends, his enemies, nor he himself observed: in the days of Napoleon he had almost a...