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Napoleon’s Cursed War: Spanish Popular Resistance in the Peninsular War, 1808-14
Current price:
$36.70
Publication Date: January 10th, 2023
Publisher:
Verso
ISBN:
9781839767883
Pages:
656
Description
A magisterial history of “Napoleon’s Vietnam”, by the highly acclaimed historian of Spain
In this definitive account of the Peninsular War (1808–14), Napoleon’s six-year war against Spain, Ronald Fraser examines what led to the emperor’s devastating defeat against the popular opposition—the guerrillas—and their British and Portuguese allies.
As well as relating the histories of the great political and military figures of the war, Fraser brings to life the anonymous masses—the artisans, peasants and women who fought, suffered and died—and restores their role in this barbaric war to its rightful place while overturning the view that this was a straightforward military campaign.
This vivid, meticulously researched book offers a distinct and profound vision of “Napoleon’s Vietnam” and shows the reality of the disasters of war: the suffering, discontents and social upheaval that accompanied the fighting.
With a new Introduction by Tariq Ali.
Praise for Napoleon’s Cursed War: Spanish Popular Resistance in the Peninsular War, 1808-14
"Fraser has re-created a world, barely glimpsed by previous historians, of the Spanish popular resistance and suffering during the anti-Napoleonic war ... An excellent work."
—Carlos Martinez Shaw, El Pais
"A milestone in the historiography of the war."
—Alistair Hennessy, New Left Review
"Fraser has breathed life into a historic era... The real protagonist of his work is the people and their tragedy."
—Luis Ribot, El Mundo
"A superb complement to Fraser’s classic Blood of Spain, of ‘history from below'."
—Ricardo Garcia Carcel, ABC
"Like Goya in The Disasters of War, Fraser has engraved in the written word the spirit and sacrifices of the popular anti-Napoleonic resistance, a precursor of the anti-fascist resistance of the [Spanish] Civil War."
—Andreu Mayayo, El Periodico de Catalunya
"A magisterial reconstruction of the Peninsular war of 1808-1814"
—Tariq Ali, Guardian
"This scholarly work investigates those who waged Spain's popular struggle between 1808 and 1814, and why. It's history from the ground up: momentous events lived by those whose voice is rarely heard...Fraser builds a mosaic from "shard-like" fragments, a labour of detection that would have swamped anyone with a less sure grip on the sweep of Spanish history."
—Elizabeth Nash, Independent
"Superb … a fine history of the popular resistance Napoleon could not defeat."
—Chris Bambery, Counterfire
