Translation Rights TQE / Manuel Godoy. The Adventure of Power

Manuel Godoy (Badajoz, 1767 – Paris, 1851) belongs to that category of historical characters who is proportionally as important as he is unknown.  He has been traditionally considered one of the most ill-fated leaders of Spanish history, depraved and ambitious without boundaries, and ultimately responsible for the delirium of the Crown that permitted the Napoleonic invasion.

As the reader will see, however, this image is far from the truth.  A dark and provincial nobleman, Godoy lived a spectacular ascension and enrichment that led him to obtain the most prominent titles and honours of the monarchy.  His close personal relationship with Charles IV and María Luisa de Parma allowed him to carry out an absolute power from 1792 until 1808, overcoming criticism and conspiracies, and wishing to confront the aristocracy and the church at home, as well as England and a post-revolutionary and Napoleonic France abroad.  But Godoy fell from power due to his ambition and desire to prolong an idea of the monarchy that was already condemned to disappear.  His fall was as spectacular as his rising to power, and it condemned him to live the remainder of his long life in exile.

This biography of Godoy – the most complete and balanced according to the prologue by the academic Carlos Seco Serrano – will bring the reader to learn new viewpoints and a good amount of unknown facts about the rule of Charles IV and about the genesis of the war for independence.  The solidity of the text and its scientific rigour are backed by an exhaustive bibliography and extensive documentation.  This book is the product of a decade’s work.

Emilio La Parra (Palomares de Campo, 1949) received a doctorate in history from the University of Valencia.  He is currently a professor of contemporary history at the University of Alicante and an acclaimed specialist in the study of the transition between the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  He is the author of La libertad de prensa en las cortes de Cádiz (Freedom of the Press in the Courts of Cádiz), 1984; El primer liberalismo y la iglesia. Las cortes de Cádiz (The First Liberalism and the Church. The Courts of Cádiz), 1985; La alianza de Godoy con los revolucionarios. España y Francia a fines el siglo XVIII (Godoy’s Alliance with the Revolutionaries. Spain and France at the end of the 18^th Century), 1992; El regente Gabriel Ciscar. Ciencia y política en la España Romántica (The Regent Gabriel Ciscar. Science and Politics in Romantic Spain).  He is also author of collaborations in books such as El anticlericalismo español contemporáneo o la historia universal del siglo XX. (Contemporary Spanish Anti-clericism or the Universal History of the 20^th Century).  He is a member of the Spanish Association of Contemporary History and of the European Society of 18^th Century Studies, among others.