Subjects:  1. Europe - Spain & Portugal    2. History    3. History - General History    4. History: World    5. Islam - General    6. Islam - History    7. European history: c 1500 to c 1750    8. History / General    9. Islamic studies    10. Spain    11. c 1500 to c 1600   

Reviews (1)

An Unsatisfying Account
Although Ren� Chartrand has produced many fine volumes of military history for the Osprey Campaign series, he appears to be in a slump lately.His latest volume, Fuentes de Onoro 1811, picks up where his last volume Bussaco 1810 left off.Like Bussaco, Fuentes de Onoro is well-researched and well-written but essentially unsatisfying.Part of the fault might be attributed to the subject, which is one of the most dreary and futile campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars - it's hard to imagine anyone writing a gripping account about a poorly-led, half-starved French army stumbling through the mountains of Portugal and returning to Spain with its tail between its legs.However part of the fault also appears to lie in the rather slap-dash manner in which this account was written, particularly compared to Chartrand's earlier works on the French and Indian Wars.Read more

Subjects:  1. Campaigns    2. Fuentes de Oänoro (Spain), Battle of, 1811    3. General    4. History    5. History - Military / War    6. Military - General    7. Peninsular War, 1807-1814    8. Portugal    9. Spanish: Adult Nonfiction    10. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    11. History / Military / General    12. Spain    13. Warfare & Defence    14. c 1800 to c 1900   

Reviews (1)

Off beat but worthwhile
Did you know the Portuguese Royal Court all up-sticked and headed for Rio during the Napoleonic Wars? This explains the why's and how's. A good read, describing the growth of Rio - as well as the duplicitous role of Britain. This may have been where Britain first began to influence latin American internal politics through the back door....... ... Read more

Subjects:  1. History: World    2. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    3. Portugal    4. c 1800 to c 1900   

Subjects:  1. 17th century    2. 19th century    3. Creoles    4. Europe - Spain & Portugal    5. History    6. History: World    7. Intellectual life    8. Latin America    9. Science    10. Spain    11. History of science    12. Portugal    13. World history   

Subjects:  1. Congresses    2. History    3. Intellectual life    4. Jewish - General    5. Judaism - General    6. Politics/International Relations    7. Religion - Judaism    8. Sephardim    9. European history: c 1500 to c 1750    10. European history: c 500 to c 1500    11. Jewish studies    12. Portugal    13. Religion / Judaism / General    14. Spain    15. c 1000 CE to c 1500    16. c 1500 to c 1600    17. c 1600 to c 1700   

Subjects:  1. Caribbean & West Indies    2. Description and travel    3. Diaries    4. Early works to 1800    5. Essays & Travelogues    6. Europe - Spain & Portugal    7. North Carolina    8. Scots    9. Travel    10. Travel - General    11. United States - Colonial Period    12. Women travelers    13. American history    14. Caribbean islands    15. Geographical discovery & exploration    16. Portugal    17. Spain    18. Travel writing   

Subjects:  1. Atlases    2. Atlases - General    3. Cartography    4. Historical Geography    5. History    6. Reference    7. Africa    8. Antiques & collectables: books, manuscripts, ephemera & printed matter    9. Maps, charts & atlases    10. Portugal    11. Spain    12. The Americas   

Subjects:  1. Eastern Europe - General    2. Europe - Spain & Portugal    3. History - General History    4. Photo Essays    5. Photography    6. Subjects & Themes - Travel - General    7. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Europe    8. Photographs: collections    9. Places & peoples: general interest    10. Portugal    11. Spain   

Reviews (1)

Excellent!!
This is one of Ospreys very best early efforts. So if you want to be introduced to one of Britains best fighting Armies then get this one asap! I can not praise this book highly enough! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. History    2. History - Military / War    3. Military    4. Military - General    5. Military - Napoleonic Wars    6. Modern - 18th Century    7. Modern - 19th Century    8. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    9. History / Military / General    10. Portugal    11. Wellington, Arthur Wellesley    12. c 1800 to c 1900   

Reviews (2)

The life of Council Sousa Mendes.
As the previous reviewer from Portugal noted, humanity sometimes fails to acknowledge people who do the right thing.Sousa Mendes was just such a man.He was a Portuguese Council in southern France at the time of the German invasion.Jews from the low countries and France fled south trying to get to the neutral countries of Spain and Portugal.These countries sealed their borders in most cases, so one had to have a visa to get across the border.Sousa Mendes violated his country's rule aginst these stateless persons, and literally issued thousands of visas so that these Jews and other opponents of the Nazis could escape.In the process, he destroyed his career and eventually died in poverty.He did do the proper thing where most others abided their country's rules. Finally, The Recognition
It is regratable that great men are rarely aknowledge as so in life. Aristides de Sousa Mendes was no exception, but his acts were expeptional. This book was long due. It's finally here, it's very well written, a just tribute to a men of honour, and I thank the author for it. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1885-1954    2. Biography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Bordeaux    5. Consuls    6. Europe - Spain & Portugal    7. France    8. Historical - Holocaust    9. History    10. History: World    11. Holocaust    12. Mendes, Aristides de Sousa,    13. Portugal    14. Refugees, Jewish    15. Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust   

Subjects:  1. Europe - General    2. Europe - Spain & Portugal    3. General    4. History    5. History - General History    6. History: World    7. Battles & campaigns    8. Europe    9. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    10. History / General    11. Portugal    12. Spain   

Reviews (2)

Personal and immediate
As accounts of the Peninsular War and Waterloo go, this is one of the most personal and immediate. It is a collection of letters which Private Wheeler sent to his family. They are goodnatured and peppered with incidents and moving references to life in the Peninsular. A Revealing Look at a Soldier's Life
Whomever the Duke of Wellington had in mind when he fulminated that his soldiers were "the very scum of the earth," he could not have been thinking of Private William Wheeler. Steady, good-natured and unaffected, Wheeler was rather the sort of man who formed the backbone of the Peninsular Army- as indeed he would have in any army in any age.Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Biography/Autobiography    3. Historical    4. Historical - General    5. Military    6. Military - Napoleonic Wars    7. Belgium    8. Biography: historical    9. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    10. Land forces & warfare    11. Military life & institutions    12. Portugal    13. Spain    14. War & defence operations    15. c 1800 to c 1900   

Subjects:  1. Art    2. Art & Art Instruction    3. Artists, Architects, Photographers    4. European    5. History - Contemporary (1945- )    6. Individual Artist    7. Abstractionism    8. France    9. Individual artists    10. Painting & paintings    11. Portugal   

Reviews (1)

KEEPING AN OPEN MIND
The theory of Columbus being a Portuguese Jew and a spy for the Portuguese king against the Spanish king is very interesting.For that reason I give the book a 4-star rating.I want to discuss the theory in more detail, but first this: it seems the author is not 100% fluent in English. Or perhaps the book was poorly translated from Portuguese, although the inside cover does not state that it's a translation.Read more

Subjects:  1. Colon family    2. Columbus, Christopher    3. Colâon family    4. Expeditions & Discoveries    5. History    6. History - General History    7. History: World    8. John II, 1481-1495    9. North American    10. Portugal    11. Relations with Portuguese    12. American history    13. Colón family    14. North America   

Reviews (4)

A Missing Link Discovered
A Missing Link Discovered Adaptation and revival
This is a highly academic work of Miriam Bodian, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Pennsylvania State University.With in-depth research, the author analyses a unique chapter in the history of Judaism:the return of Iberian "conversos" to rabbinical religion and theestablishment of the Jewish community in Amsterdam.A remarkable accountof the strength and perseverance of a "nation" which clings toits roots despite all adversities.This is cultural"Darwinism..."

Free of Catholic rule,ConversosreJudaize in Amsterdam.
In the last decade of the 16th and first decades of the 17th centuries, Spanish and Portuguese Conversos leave their homelands and come to Amsterdam seeking what author Miriam Bodian calls rejudaization, or what we, today, call conversion as a requirement for full participation incommunity life and benefits derived by being part of rabbinic Judaism. Affluent, educated, and willing to learn rabbinic Judaism, these Conversosare seeking to learn and to establish Jewish rituals and worship.Forexample, ex-Conversos seek religious aid from Uri Halevi, an Ashkenazirabbi from Emden who establishs what is probably the first synagogue inAmsterdam in 1595.When Halevi starts circumcising Conversos, the Dutchauthorities arrest him and charge him with circumcising adults who arepresumably Conversos.However, Halevi is released and allowed to continueworking with the Iberian ex-Conversos and with his help they are able toestablish their own rituals by 1603.One of the early Conversos whoarrives in Holland is Isaac Pinto.He is overjoyed at having been giventhe opportunity to practice Judaism, the religion of his Iberian ancestors. Pinto not only learns Judaism, he studies Hebrew and established asynagogue, which he finances in its entirety during his lifetime.Althoughfew of the ex-Conversos have the financial means that Pinto had, theyactively participate in the Jewish community life of Amsterdam.However,as the 17th century starts passing, a new type of Converso who viewsJudaism as a practical necessity begin arriving in Amsterdam.Often times,this group of Conversos wanted to participate in the life of the synagogueand receive the benefits derived from being part of the Jewish community,but had no desire toundergo circumcision.There are examples ofuncircumcised Conversos who died in Amsterdam and their families wanted tobury them in the Jewish cemetery of Ouderkerk. The Mahamad (see definition)ruled that the dead Conversos had to be circumcised before they could beburied in Ouderkerk."Denial of the right of burial [in the Jewishcemetery] was used by the Mahamad in Amsterdam, if not to encouragecircumcision, to pressure a few of the �migr�s to undergo formal conversionto Judaism. These were persons who unquestionably belonged to the `Nation'but, because of known female old Christian ancestors on their mother'sside, were not Jewish according to rabbinical law, which held thatJewishness was transmitted through the mother".The Amsterdam Jewishcommunity was very careful not to upset Spain or Portugal by activelypromoting Judaism or openly protecting crypto-Jews on Spanish or Portuguesesoil. This was because Amsterdam's ex-Conversos were heavily engaged incommerce as ship owners, diamond and spice traders, and many otheractivities related to commerce with the Spanish and Portuguese empires.Although the Amsterdam Jewish community probably did not openly helpCrypto-Jews in Iberia, there is evidence that some of the many prayer booksthat were printed in Spanish and Portuguese in Amsterdam were sent to Spainand Portugal or their overseas possessions (Bodian page 199).TheAmsterdam ex-Conversos strongly encouraged their friends and relatives inthe Iberian Peninsula to leave before the Inquisition find them.Thefollowing exerts from letters written by the ex-Converso Abraham Ida�a(Gaspar Mendez del Arroyo) to Conversos in Iberia illustrate the feelingsof Amsterdam Jews in 1686:"The notion of serving God in one's heart,it is not enough.The law of Moses was given in order to be observed. Itis a particularly grave sin to remain uncircumcised.One must flee tolands of freedom and be circumcised without delay.Nor should one deludeoneself that good deeds can compensate for failure to observe theLaw".The ex-Converso community in Amsterdam was always ready to helpnewly arrived Conversos who needed help to return to Judaism. If thecommunity could not help the newly arrived Conversos in Amsterdam, thecommunity would aid the new comers to find passage to the Ottoman empire,Italy, or even to the New World where more freedom could be found than inthe Iberian Peninsula.Once the ex-Converso community established rabbinicJudaism they began observing Jewish precepts and prohibitions, developedover many centuries, which regulated and restricted relations between Jewsand Gentiles. Regardless of this, there is evidence that some ex-Conversosmen took lower-class gentile women, often maidservants, as mistresses. From1600-1623, notarial records reveal instances of sexual relations betweenPortuguese Jews and gentile women (most of them were Dutch orScandinavian). Even though it was illegal to have sexual relations betweenJews and gentiles under Jewish and Dutch law, few of the ex-Conversos ortheir mistresses were prosecuted.Bodian tells us that to a degree thefathers of the illegitimate children provided for their support and that agroup of fifteen Amsterdam Jewish merchants established a society calledDotar for the purpose of providing a dowry to orphans and poor girlsdescendants of the Portuguese Nation or Castilian Conversos.It isconceivable that many of the illegitimate daughters of ex-Conversos wereeligible and obtained dowry to marry Jews.Eligibility to obtain a dowrywas not only for Amsterdam's girls, but it was extended to girls who livedin the Iberian Peninsula, or other parts of Europe, the Ottoman empire, andthe New World. Candidates had to prove eligibility by demonstrating thatthey were descendants of Conversos through either their paternal ormaternal line. In order to find suitable candidates for dowries, theAmsterdam ex-Converso community established an elaborated network in manycountries. It is possible that the dowry network extended its activitybeyond determining eligibility for dowry.The Amsterdam ex-Conversocommunity gained knowledge of rabbinic Judaism rapidly and by the 1630sthey had produced their own rabbis and scholars, such as Menasseh benIsrael and Isaac Aboab da Fonseca.The community not only producedbrilliant Jewish scholars but as a whole was very active in religiousactivity and its knowledge of Jewish traditions was adequate, if notbrilliant (Bodian page 110).The ex-Converso community learned because ofits perseverance to acieve rejudaization. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Europe - General    2. General    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History: World    6. Jewish - General    7. Western Europe - Benelux    8. History of specific racial & ethnic groups    9. Jewish studies    10. Netherlands    11. Portugal   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Culture conflict    3. Europe - Spain & Portugal    4. History    5. History: World    6. Intercultural communication    7. Post-communism    8. Radicalism    9. Religious fundamentalism    10. Sociology    11. Cultural studies    12. Moral theology    13. Political science & theory    14. Political structure & processes    15. Portugal    16. Spain   

Subjects:  1. Europe - Spain & Portugal    2. History    3. History - Military / War    4. History: World    5. Military    6. Military - General    7. Modern - 19th Century    8. Battles & campaigns    9. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    10. History / General    11. Portugal    12. Spain    13. c 1800 to c 1900   

Subjects:  1. Africa - West    2. Discrimination & Racism    3. History - General History    4. African history    5. Angola    6. Colonization & independence    7. Portugal   

Reviews (4)

Excellent account of the strategic and political aspects of Britain's struggle with France.
This is a very interesting and well written account of the later years of the war against France. As is clear from other reviews and the book description, this is an account of the political and financial aspects as much as the military. I'd just like to add that the narratvie becomes more European after 1812 as Russia, Prussia and then Austria rejoin the war. A lot of space then becomes devoted to the negotiations between the Powers. The book also contains an account of the war with the US from 1812-1814.
Everyone knows that God is an Englishman!
Stand back, everyone...stand back and be enlightened on how great a country we English have and how we beat the "anti-Christ," Napoleon! Rory Muir's portrait of the war and how great was his country,amounts to nothing more than marching in lock-step with a legion of fellowEnglish writers who are hell-bent on a never-ending agenda of attempting toportray their long-disappeared Empire as the "saviour" of WesternEurope. The whole exercise smacked of something that was originallyintended to be published in a magazine that caters to the selected audienceto which the message is crafted.

Interesting and Enjoyable Historical Account
I found this book surprisingly very easy to read and it held my interest throughout. It covered most facets of Britain's role in the war against Napoleon. As the previous review mentions it looks at why the BritishGovernment carried out certain policies and the affects of those policieson it's field army under Wellington, its continental allies and the rest ofthe countries and people involved in the Napoleonic Wars.Read more

Subjects:  1. Campaigns    2. Emperor of the French,    3. History - General History    4. Military - Napoleonic Wars    5. Military History - Modern    6. Napoleon    7. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815    8. Participation, British    9. Peninsular War, 1807-1814    10. Politics/International Relations    11. Waterloo, Battle of, Waterloo, Belgium, 1815    12. Western Europe - History    13. British & Irish history: c 1700 to c 1900    14. European history: c 1750 to c 1900    15. History / General    16. Military leadership    17. Portugal    18. Spain    19. United Kingdom, Great Britain    20. Wellington, Arthur Wellesley    21. c 1800 to c 1900   

Subjects:  1. History    2. History - General History    3. History: World    4. Medieval    5. Military - Other    6. Military - Strategy    7. Military History - Ancient    8. Military Tactics And Strategy    9. European history: c 500 to c 1500    10. History / Military / Strategy    11. History, World | Ancient    12. Italy    13. Military tactics    14. Portugal    15. Spain    16. War & defence operations    17. c 1000 CE to c 1500