We received the following press release.--RL

A ninth volume is now being added to the classic set by Sir Charles Oman, with the subtitle MODERN STUDIES OF THE WAR IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL, 1808-1814. This new volume has been edited by Paddy Griffith who writes in his Preface:

'Second only to Battle Studies by the spiritual Ardant du Picq, Sir Charles Oman's A HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR has always been my favourite military book. Whereas Ardant explained the general psychology of combat, Oman provided a rich mine of specific examples. He demonstrated how a variety of personal memoirs could be woven together to make an impressively authoritative narrative of a battle, even at its lowest levels, at the same time as he linked the individual details into higher concerns of operations and strategy. Oman's work was also, of course, monumentally weighty and apparently complete. Throughout my professional life I have rarely been far away from a copy, and I have regarded it as the ultimate reference for what rightly, wrongly, or just plain romantically, I have always subconsciously tended to regard as the ultimate war.

I am therefore especially proud to assemble the present collection of essays, which are written by an international team of acknowledged experts in various aspects of Peninsular War studies. By taking a new look at Sir Charles' work, I hope that we will be able to enhance our appreciation of it, and pay off at least a part of the debt that we all owe to that illustrious author.

The contributions have been set the double aim of re-assessing Oman's contribution in the light of modern scholarship, while also explaining something of their own new findings about these subjects. Taken as a whole, our book seeks to direct the interested reader towards features of the Peninsular War which may be new, or unfamiliar, or which are simply 'not in Oman'. Hence we will be supplementing him, rather than supplanting him. It would be a perilous task indeed to write a history of this war which did aim to replace all seven of his magisterial volumes, and so no attempt is made to do so here.

Against this, it would be equally unhelpful if we were merely to re-assess Oman in a spirit of uncritical adulation, going no further than applauding his achievement and recommending his wisdom to our readers.

Although we can today see the distortions caused by Oman's Victorian prejudices with greater clarity than ever before, we should nevertheless always bear in mind that by far the greater part of his work still stands solid and reliable, and indeed admirable.'

Contributions to this major new work include Dr Charles Esdaile on the political state of Iberia; James Arnold on the French Army and its problems adapting to the demands of the Iberian Peninsula; Philip Haythornthwaite on the British Army and on Peninsular War sieges; Paddy Griffith on campaign conditions; Professor Harold Livermore on the Portuguese; Brent Nosworthy on Peninsular War tactics; Dr Rory Muir on the British government and the struggle; Rene Chartrand on the guerrillas; Ambassador Leopoldo Stampa on Joseph Bonaparte's Spanish kingdom; Arthur Harman on the role of British light infantry; Juan Jose Sanudo on the Spanish Army; and an Introduction giving biographical details of Sir Charles Oman and setting his monumental work firmly within the context of modern Napoleonic studies.

This ninth volume to the classic A HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR is an important contribution to our appreciation of the War, the men who fought it and its impact on the modern world.

A HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR
Volume IX: Modern Studies of the War in Spain and Portugal, 1808-1814
Edited by Paddy Griffith
222 x 141mm; 464 pages; 31 illustrations; 7 maps.
1-85367-348-X. £ 30.00

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Web site: www.greenhillbooks.com

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