Customer Reviews

Napoleon's Cursed War: Popular Resistance in the Spanish Peninsular War, 1808-1814

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This masterful history of Spanish Resistance during the Peninsula War has many echoes today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Napoleon was regarded as the carrier of Enlightenment values and the French Revolution. In Spain the majority saw him as a proto-colonial conqueror. I first read the book in Spanish, but to have it now in its original language is a real treat. In Spain, the book has received a warm welcome as thew following reviews indicate:

The (Spanish) myths and euphoric visions of the war give way (in this book) to an infinitely more complex reality which only the historian's patient assembly of witnesses' evidence can provide. Ronald Fraser's tenacity and acumen reconstruct a world which other specialists have barely glimpsed, concentrating instead exclusively on the statements of the great and rejecting the real experiences of Spaniards beset by the miseries of the war. In short, this is an excellent book with which to begin the new academic historiographical year. --Professor Carlos Martínez Shaw, El País [Babelia], 21/10/06



For the first time Ronald Fraser describes for us the ordinary people of 1808, to whom we (Spanish historians) have so often referred, and whose moods and emotions we now experience directly... These are the protagonists of this book: the people who suffered the war's hardships and who, whether they won it or lost, were considered mere cannon fodder. The work marks a fundamental milestone in the conflict's historiography. --Professor Ricardo García Cárcel, ABC (de las artes y de las letras), 23/09/06



The principal merit of this work lies in the creation of new historical sources, compiled from fragments of information, and the new data bases which, like the work of a goldsmith, permit Fraser to describe how simple people of every walk of life experienced - or rather suffered - the ravages of the war. 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. Professor Andreu Mayayo, El Periódico de Catalunya, 08/03/06
Their English equivalents are eagerly awaited

Ronald Fraser's account of Napoleon's six year war against Spain and the resistance of the Spanish people is a path breaking history, a joy to read, and should be snapped up by readers interested in studies of the unnamed, `anonymous' men and women who suffer war, resist seemingly impossible odds, and shape history. Thorough his meticulously researched exploration of what became Napoleons Vietnam, Fraser vividly brings to life the suffering, struggles and resistance of the Spanish people. In doing so, he reconfigures historical understanding of that conflict.

Fraser has long been regarded is a national treasure in Spain, recently honored at a national conference for his classic book on the Spanish civil war, The Blood of Spain,. Fraser conducted over 300 interviews with protagonists from all sides of the civil war to produce that book which stunningly captured the feel of the war and, as Studs Terkel pointed out, "is as close to the truth as we'll ever get." My own historical interest is in the Americas, yet Fraser has long inspired me in his work with oral history. He continues to do so with this compelling history of resistance in the Peninsular War. Napoleon's Curse has been rightfully acclaimed in Spain as a "superb complement' to his earlier work. This is a lyrically written book by a master historian.

I will summarize the importance of this magnificent book by quoting Napoleon, from his 'Diary' in Saint Helena:

"It was that unhappy war in Spain that ruined me. The results have irrevocably proved that I was in the wrong. [...] The unfortunate war in Spain proved a real wound,--the first cause of the misfortune of France. If I could have foreseen that that affair would cause me so much vexation and chagrin, I would never have engaged in it. [...] Had I known at the first that the transaction would have given me so much trouble, I never would have engaged in it."

Napoleon was mortified by this episode. He was convinced that Spain was solely responsible for France's defeat.

This is a superb work on the guerrilla war waged by the people of Spain against Napoleon's invading army during the Peninsula War. One cannot understand what is guerrilla warfare until they read this work and understand where the modern term "guerrilla warfare" originated from. The author conducted extensive research in finding out the detailed methods of warfare the Spanish insurgents used such as urban operations, ambushes, and attrition. The author produces many valuable estimates of French and Spanish casualties that one would have difficulty in contradicting. I found this book to be exceedingly thorough, detail oriented, and a wealth of information on the subject of guerrilla warfare and the Peninsula War. 5 stars all the way.

Mr Fraser is not a trained historian, and that is very evident in the pages of this his latest book. He makes a lot of mistakes in his approach to the sources, the worst being an almost irritating inability to distinguish between fact and opinion. Moreover, he jump to conclussions based upon his prejudices, providing the reader with analysis of such infantile lack of complexity that would ashame any serious student of the War. Don't be fooled by his apparently spectacular use of original sources: he didn't check but a few documents, the rest were carefully digested and feed to him by some students that he hired to make the work for him... I know personally four of them.

What else? Oh, yes! He doesn't know what a scientific approach to data means. He will provide you with numbers, figures and statistics. Again: don't be fooled. The method of research followed was so lousy and unscientific that most of them are practically worthless. The worst is his guerrillas data-base. Sweet Jesus! He couldn't even distinguish between guerrilla activities from simple events of rural violence so common in Ancient Regime societies that not even a greenhorn historian, fresh from the University, would have mistake!

So save your money and try better books in Peninsular War. Even Charles Esdaile's recent book is better, though his approach is just sir Oman's re-born.