Tracing insurgencies ranging from China to Africa to Latin America, Black highlights the widely differing military and political dimensions of each conflict. He weighs how, and why, lessons were “learned” or, rather, asserted, in both insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. At every stage, he considers lessons learned by contemporaries, the ways in which norms developed within militaries and societies, and their impact on doctrine and policy. His sweeping study of insurrectionary warfare and its counterinsurgency counterpart will be essential reading for all students of military history.
Jeremy Black is a pre-eminent military historian, thinker and strategist. His publications include The French and Napoleonic Wars, A History of Artillery, Importance of Being Poirot; The World of James Bond; and A History of the Second World War in 100 Maps. He is professor emeritus of history at the University of Exeter.