This timely book offers a world history of insurgencies and of counterinsurgency warfare. Jeremy Black moves beyond the conventional Western-centric narrative, arguing that it is crucial to ground contemporary experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq in a global framework. Unlike other studies that begin with the American and French revolutions, this book reaches back to antiquity to trace the pre-modern origins of war within states. Interweaving thematic and chronological narratives, Black probes the enduring linkages between beliefs, events, and people on the one hand and changes over time on the other hand. He shows the extent to which power politics, technologies, and ideologies have evolved, creating new parameters and paradigms that have framed both governmental and public views.
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.

This timely book offers a world history of insurgencies and of counterinsurgency warfare. Jeremy Black moves beyond the conventional Western-centric narrative, arguing that it is crucial to ground contemporary experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq in a global framework. Reaching back to antiquity to trace the pre-modern origins of war within states, Black interweaves thematic and chronological narratives. He probes the enduring linkages between beliefs, events, and people even as power politics, technologies, and ideologies have evolved, creating new parameters and paradigms that have framed both governmental and public views. Tracing insurgencies ranging from China to Africa to Latin America, Black highlights the widely differing military and political dimensions of each conflict. 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 of its counterinsurgency counterpart will be essential reading for all students of military history.

Preface
Abbreviations
Chapter 1:Introduction
Chapter 2:Insurgency to 1500
Chapter 3:Contesting Religion and Power, 15001700
Chapter 4:Entering the Modern? The Eighteenth Century
Chapter 5:Insurgencies in an Age of Imperialism: The Nineteenth Century
Chapter 6:The Ideology of Peoples War Refracted, 190040
Chapter 7:Insurrections at a Height, 194060
Chapter 8:The Fall of Empires, 196080
Chapter 9:The Variety of Goals and Means, 1980s
Chapter 10:After the Cold War, 1990s
Chapter 11:Interventionism and Its Failings, 2000s
Chapter 12:A World without Shape? The Present
Chapter 13:Speculations about the Future
Chapter 14:Conclusions
Notes
Selected Further Reading

Index