Francisco Solano López, who ruled Paraguay for just eight years (1862–70), is notorious in Latin American history as the president who led the small nation into the disastrous Triple Alliance War against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Refusing to capitulate, Paraguay finally lost a quarter of its national territory to Argentina and Brazil, and up to 60% of its population, including a staggering 90% of its adult male population. Without doubt, López is the most controversial figure in the history of the country, in part due to repeated efforts over the past century to reinterpret events from a partisan and ideological point of view. Indeed, the lopista/anti-lopista debate over whether López was the glorious hero or irredeemable villain continues to this day in different and evolving forms. Most importantly, the dominant lopista discourse – which presents López as the personification of the country's heroism – has played a central role in the ideological narrative of the Colorado Party, in power since 1947.

James Schofield Saeger's new book, Francisco Solano López and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism, stands out in a number of ways. First, it identifies a theme which is not only permanently topical in Paraguay, but has also recently enjoyed renewed interest in contemporary academic historical analysis in English. Historians such as Thomas Whigham, Jerry Cooney and Chris Leuchars have produced some outstanding work to add to our knowledge and understanding of the period. Second, there is a conscious attempt to make the book exciting, fast-moving and interesting, with the aim, one imagines, of reaching a wider audience. Thirdly, and perhaps most interestingly for a historian, this book takes a bold political stance, with Saeger planting his flag firmly and unashamedly in the anti-lopista camp. This is no balanced or nuanced analysis of the life of López, but rather an attempt to dispel the myths, challenge the hegemonic (Colorado) narrative, and present the dictator as Saeger believes he was; a violent and egocentric tyrant who led his country to disaster.

Given the politicised manipulation of the López myth in the dominant Colorado discourse, Saeger is perhaps justified in seeking to correct a clear imbalance. The danger of course is that the analysis may go too far the other way and present a distorted or one-sided analysis. And this is precisely what occurs. What comes across in the book is an almost personal hatred of López, a figure repeatedly criticised for his distorted sense of honour, his obsession with pride, and his lust for fame and glory. He is presented as cowardly, incompetent, arrogant and lacking in empathy – in short ‘an evil and disgusting man’ (p. 218) with no redeeming features. There is little doubt López was personally an unlikeable figure who was increasingly despotic towards the end of his rule. However, it seems slightly unbecoming in a historian to take such a personalised and one-sided stance. The aim of the biographer is surely not so much to judge or condemn a character – however despicable – but to seek to understand, explain and deepen our understanding of the character, his decisions, his drive, his motives or his aims.

Whatever his faults, López alone was hardly responsible for the Triple Alliance War. From independence onwards, Paraguayans firmly believed that their very existence was threatened by invasion from both Brazil and Argentina, an attitude that fed into the country's unique form of autonomous development, its isolation and its obsession with defence. Thus the sections on contextualisation are particularly important for us to gain a greater understanding of López and the War. It is to be regretted therefore that these contextual sections are so brief and superficial. Indeed, analysis of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the dominant figure of the first 30 years of independence, a figure crucial in reflecting Paraguay's perspective on regional affairs, is given just two pages. The combination of thin contextualisation, and the fact that Saeger limits blame for the War on the obsessive ego and quest for personal glorification of López, means the reader is left with little idea of the deeper causes of the conflict, or indeed why so many Paraguayans willingly followed López to almost certain death. A despot can compel obedience through punishment and threat, but he cannot compel courage, blind loyalty and extraordinary self-sacrifice, especially on such a vast scale.

Perhaps the main criticism of the book is that of its approach. Recent academic works on the period have sought to go beyond the tired, ahistorical and distorting lens of the lopista vs anti-lopista dichotomy, using the wealth of archival and published material in Paraguay to cast light on new areas of research, broaden the parameters of academic study and offer a more nuanced analysis. However, instead of building on this, Saeger returns to the well-trodden and ideologically fuelled debate on López, relying greatly on interesting but well-known secondary sources written by foreign observers at the time. In this sense, the book is polemical but unproductive, adding little in terms of new research, analysis or understanding.

Finally, Saeger makes a conscious effort to inject excitement into the book through anecdote, light diversion or exaggeration. Thus substantial attention is paid to the more sensationalist side of the López ‘story’. For example Elisa Lynch is referred to as his ‘fair, foreign treasure’ (p. 183), with the style at times bordering on the journalistic. Neither of these approaches quite works. The story is already gripping, while the effort to produce a more readable book results in awkward, stilted expressions, such as where Saeger refers to current perceptions of López in Paraguay in the following way:

Overall, the project has a clear, timely and interesting pitch; an accessible, fast-moving account of López which seeks to rectify alleged distortions of the truth, for a wider academic community. Unfortunately, the book does not quite deliver. Instead, we have a biography that is heavily partial in terms of analysis, light on contextual interpretation and both limited and repetitive in terms of argument. It is also weak in terms of style and expression, with non-standard referencing and little effort to produce any fluency, much less lyricism, in the text. The overall impression is that this is a missed opportunity and that the work would have benefited from a longer period of gestation and more ambitious aims. There is still much to be written about this era of Paraguayan history, and much archival and published evidence to be analysed and brought together – and some very able historians are doing just that. It is therefore a shame that this book should have evolved into a rushed, polemical, almost sensationalist work, rather than the considered, analytical and balanced biography that would have contributed to our understanding of the man and the era.