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This volume addresses the problem of small, irregular, and unconventional war across time and around the globe. The use of non-uniformed and often civilian combatants, with tactics eschewing pitched battles, is the most common form of warfare throughout history and comes in many forms.
The collection works back in time beginning with the 'Long War' in present day Afghanistan and concluding with warfare in classical Greece. Along the way it engages with conflicts as diverse as the American Civil War and regional rebellion in Tudor England. Each case study provides unique insights into the practices, experiences, and discourses that have shaped this ubiquitous type of conflict.
Readers interested in rebellion and repression, cultural and tactical interpretations of conflict, civilian strategies in wartime, the supposed 'western way of war', and the ways in which participants have framed and related their actions across a variety of spheres will find much ofinterest in these pages.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction Guerrillas and Counterinsurgency in History; Brian Hughes and Fergus Robson.- Part I: Insurgents, Counter-Insurgency, and Civilians in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.- Chapter 2: Gender and 'Population-centric' Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan; Julia Welland.- Chapter 3: 'The Best Fellagha Hunter is the French of North African Descent': Harkis in French Algeria; Raphaëlle Branche.- Chapter 4: 'Black-and-Tan tendencies': policing insurgency in the Palestine Mandate, 1922-48; Seán William Gannon.- Chapter 5: 'The Entire Population of this God-forsaken Island is Terrorised by a Small Band of Gun-men': Guerrillas and Civilians during the Irish Revolution; Brian Hughes.- Chapter 6: American Civil War Guerrillas; Daniel E. Sutherland.- Part II: Small War from the Early Modern World to Antiquity.- Chapter 7: Insurgent Identities, Destructive Discourses, and Militarized Massacre: French Armies on the Warpath Against Insurgents in the Vendée, Italy, and Egypt; Fergus Robson.- Chapter 8: Lords of the Forests in Flanders: Small War by Freebooters and the Dutch Contributions System in Flanders, 1584-1592; Tim Piceu.- Chapter 9:'A Great Company of Country Clowns': Guerrilla Warfare in the East Anglian and Western Rebellions (1549); Alexander Hodgkins.- Chapter 10: Good King Robert's Testament?: Guerrilla Warfare in Later Medieval Scotland; Alastair J. Macdonald.- Chapter 11: Guerrilla Warfare and Revolt in 2nd Century BC Egypt; Brian McGing.- Chapter 12: Unorthodox Warfare? Variety and Change in Archaic Greek Warfare (ca. 700- ca. 480 B.C.E.); Matthew Lloyd.
About the author
Fergus Robson was Associate Director of the Centre for War Studies and currently lectures on Napoleonic Europe in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is a specialist on resistance and rebellion during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire. His recent work on French soldiers’ cultural encounters with Italians and Egyptians complements his interest in the contested creation of national identities and states.
Brian Hughes is NUI Research Fellow in the Humanities at An Foras Feasa, Maynooth University, Ireland and a historian of modern Ireland, specialising in civilian and grassroots experiences of conflict in revolutionary Ireland. His most recent book is Defying the IRA? Intimidation, Coercion, and Communities during the Irish Revolution (2016).
Summary
This volume addresses the problem of small, irregular, and unconventional war across time and around the globe. The use of non-uniformed and often civilian combatants, with tactics eschewing pitched battles, is the most common form of warfare throughout history and comes in many forms.
The collection works back in time beginning with the ‘Long War’ in present day Afghanistan and concluding with warfare in classical Greece. Along the way it engages with conflicts as diverse as the American Civil War and regional rebellion in Tudor England. Each case study provides unique insights into the practices, experiences, and discourses that have shaped this ubiquitous type of conflict.
Readers interested in rebellion and repression, cultural and tactical interpretations of conflict, civilian strategies in wartime, the supposed ‘western way of war’, and the ways in which participants have framed and related their actions across a variety of spheres will find much ofinterest in these pages.
