Book description
Insurgencies, especially in the form of guerrilla warfare, continue
to erupt across many parts of the globe. Most of these rebellions
fail, but Four Rebellions that Shaped Our World analyzes four
twentieth-century conflicts in which the success of the insurgents
permanently altered the global political arena: the Maoists in China
against Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s; the
Viet Minh in French Indochina from 1945 to 1954; Castro's followers
against Batista in Cuba from 1956 to 1959; and the mujahideen in
Soviet Afghanistan from 1980 to 1989.
Anthony James Joes illuminates patterns of failed counterinsurgencies
that include serious but avoidable political and military blunders and
makes clear the critical and often decisive influence of the
international setting. Offering provocative insights and timeless
lessons applicable to contemporary conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan,
this authoritative and comprehensive book will be of great interest to
policy-makers and concerned citizens alike.
""Provacative, stimulating, and often convincingly
revisionist, this is a most useful work."-- Choice" --
Anthony James Joes, professor of political science at Saint
Joseph's University, is the author of Urban Guerrilla Warfare,
Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency,
America and Guerrilla Warfare, and many other books.
