Peninsular Eyewitnesses: the Experience of War in Spain and Portugal 1808 - 1813 - Tapa dura

Many books have been written about the British struggle against Napoleon in the Peninsula. A few recent studies have given a broader view of the ebb and flow of a long war that had a shattering impact on Spain and Portugal and marked the history of all the nations involved. But none of these books has concentrated on how these momentous events were perceived and understood by the people who experienced them. Charles Esdaile has brought together a vivid selection of contemporary accounts of every aspect of the war to create a panoramic yet minutely detailed picture of those years of turmoil. The story is told through memoirs, letters and eyewitness testimony from all sides. Instead of generals and statesmen, we mostly hear from less-well-known figures - junior officers and ordinary soldiers and civilians who recorded their immediate experience of the conflict.

Professor Charles Esdaile is one of the leading historians of the Napoleonic era and holds a personal chair at the University of Liverpool. His wide-ranging history of Napoleon's attempt to conquer Spain and Portugal, The Peninsular War: A New History, and his international history of the Napoleonic period, Napoleon's Wars, are classic works on the subject. Among his many other books are The French Wars 1792-1815, The Duke of Wellington and the Command of the Spanish Army 1812-14, Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in Spain 1808-1814 and Peninsular Eyewitnesses: The Experience of War in Spain and Portugal 1808-1814.