I've been crawling through my first (and probably only) "Paddy" Griffith book, this being The Art of War In Revolutionary France. Of course, I've heard of him for years, but never having been that absorbed with the land side of the era, I've never had occasion to pick up one of his books before.
However, after pawing through a huge book collection and finding zip, I felt almost obligated to buy something to repay the seller for the time he spent with me. I selected this book since it was on a period that I've found to be under-covered (the battles of revolutionary France) in popular stuff, and since it has a marvellous etching of General Dagobert in the illustrations. (CHV: Isn't he from Dilbert?).
However, after wading through two thirds of the book, I have to say that I should have opted to give the seller the money free gratis. Aside from a rather choppy style of writing (I'd call it "Chatty Cathy", after a particularly inane talking doll that once was sold over here), a use of obscure terms when alternatives have existed for a couple of centuries ("slighting a fortress" is one that stands out), and the very irritating habits of quoting sources in the body of the text and writing from the first person viewpoint, the whole book seems to be one great anti-Bonaparte diatribe. (CHV: Come on Terry, "slighting a fortress" is not obscure, it is exact. Providing it is what the author means when he says it.).
Mind you, I'm not of the opinion that Napoleon Ier was the best thing since sliced bread. The man had a myriad of faults, in common with most of humanity and some of his reputation rightfully deserved to be knocked out of bed (as Griffith might say; I'd use "debunked" normally, but Paddy's literary habits have rubbed off on me from too much exposure).
But, the way Griffith goes about his chosen task, the book reads more like some of the crack brained political stuff that once was directed at Ted Kennedy but now seems to be reserved for William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton. (I won't go to the trouble of quoting any of it, as I'm sure that you've the book and are as familiar with it as I.) Some of his comments on the source materials make me wonder if he's got all of his bolts screwed up tight.
Taken as a whole, it reads more like some of our fringe "The South Was Right!" stuff than a scholarly work. Is this sort of thing that passes for the norm in "Napoleonic scholarship" these days, or does he have some sort of an axe to grind with the other authorities in the field? (If so, he seems to have taken an odd approach. He also quotes Digby-Smith/"Otto Von Pivka"...not a good sign in my book...)
All in all, this is a major disappointment for me, particularly as I have heard of Griffith being spoken well of in the past. I see now that my opinions need to altered.
Also on the topic of books, do you have a "special" firm to which you refer your difficult second hand book acquisition requests? Nicolas Barker tried a firm that he's used in the past, but without success, to see if they could find a copy of Desbriere's Trafalgar Campaign in the English translation by Constance Eastwick (two volumes, from sometime in the 1930's). There's only _one_ copy here in the United States that I've been able to find (Library of Congress), and where I now live there is no convenient interlibrary loan way to gain access to the work. Surely they did not limit themselves to one pressing of this book, right?
If you do have a "source", I'd appreciate it if you could have them look for this set for me, as well as for any English translation of the four volume set that Desbriere did on the potential invasion of Great Britain (if such an animal exists).
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