Honor and Guano. A History of the First Pacific War
19.99 €
15.99 €
In stock
Honor and Guano. A History of the First Pacific War
19.99 €
15.99 €
Spain's last chance to regain its influence in its former colonies in South America came in 1863 on an interesting occasion. The conflict between the former metropolis and Peru, which was then joined by Peruvian neighbors, formally began because of the murder of a Basque and the ambitions of the government of Spanish Queen Isabella II. But in reality, the First Pacific War (1864-1866) became the world's first struggle over a precious resource: guano, the fossilized droppings of birds that had inhabited the cliffs at the very edge of the earth for thousands of years. And the first large-scale use of steam-powered warfare in the Southern Hemisphere, by the way. How the unwillingness of the population of small countries to experience national humiliation finally deprived Spain of the status of a superpower, tells a new book by Vyacheslav Kondratyev - author of the bestseller "The Great Paraguayan War". Exploring a little-known topic for Russian readers, the author shows that the bloody events of those years - with rebellions, betrayals and ridiculous accidents that destroyed entire ships - were only a logical prelude to the subsequent large-scale War for guano and saltpeter, in which Chile, Peru and Bolivia clashed in 1879.
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