Esdaile, Charles J.

views updated

Esdaile, Charles J.

PERSONAL:

Male. Education: Earned B.A. and Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of History, University of Liverpool, 9 Abercromby Sq., Liverpool L69 7WZ, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator, writer. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, England, instructor in history and chair of School of History Research Committee.

MEMBER:

Fellow, Royal Historical Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Literary Award, International Napoleonic Society, 1996.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

The Spanish Army in the Peninsular War,Manchester University Press (Manchester, England), 1988.

The Duke of Wellington and the Command of the Spanish Army, 1812-1814, Macmillan (London, England), 1990.

The Wars of Napoleon, Longman (London, England), 1995.

Spain in the Liberal Age: From Constitution toCivil War, 1808-1939, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 2000.

The French Wars, 1792-1815, Routledge (London, England), 2001.

The Peninsular War: A New History, Allen Lane/Penguin (London, England), 2002.

Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in Spain, 1808-1814, Yale University Press (London, England), 2004.

(Editor) Popular Resistance in the French Wars: Patriots, Partisans and Land-Pirates,Palgrave-Macmillan (London, England), 2004.

Contributor of articles to professional journals, including History: The Journal of the Historical Association; contributor of articles to books, includingThe Peninsular War: Aspects of the Struggle for the Iberian Peninsula, edited by I. Fletcher, Spellmount (Staplehurst, England), 1998; Napoleon's Legacy: Problems of Government in Restoration Europe, edited by L. Ryell and D. Lavin, Berg (Oxford, England), 2000; and Napoleon and Europe, edited by P. Dwyer, Longman (London, England), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charles J. Esdaile is a British historian whose work blends military, political, and social history. A specialist on Spain in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, and, more specifically the Peninsular War of 1808-1814, he has written several well-received histories of the era, including The Wars of Napoleon, The Peninsular War: A New History, and Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in Spain, 1808-1814. Esdaile's work has also focused on broader time periods in Spanish history, as in his Spain in the Liberal Age: From Constitution to Civil War, 1808-1939, a work which, among other things, points out the importance of the military in Spanish society in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Reviewing the last-named title in the English Historical Review, Andrew Dowling felt Esdaile's work "is to be welcomed," and that it "does a service in reminding us that, whatever may be the case today, Spain was different." Esdaile examines an earlier period in his The Duke of Wellington and the Command of the Spanish Army, 1812-1814. K. Theodore Hoppen, writing for theEnglish Historical Review found this work "important," and one that "offers a new insight into Wellington's career, while vividly illustrating the problems that can beset a military alliance in times of people's war."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

English Historical Review, February, 1994, K. Theodore Hoppen, review of The Duke of Wellington and the Command of the Spanish Army, 1812-1814, p. 212; February, 2001, Andrew Dowling, review of Spain in the Liberal Age: From Constitution to Civil War, 1808-1939, p. 245.