Book Description
“The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with.†With these words, Robert Taber began a revolution in conventional military thought that has dramatically impacted the way armed conflicts have been fought since the book’s initial publication in 1965. Whether ideological, nationalistic, or religious, all guerrilla insurgencies use similar tactics to advance their cause. War of the Flea's timeless analysis of the guerrilla fighter’s means and methods provides a fundamental resource for any reader seeking to understand this distinct form of warfare and the challenge it continues to present to today’s armed forces in the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere.
Customer Reviews:
A bit dated.......2007-10-13
Although this book is supposed to be a classic study of guerrilla warefare is sorely needs to be updated with modern tactics. One glaring flaw is the lack of appreciation for modern communications. The focus of this book is the success of communist guerrillas in central and south America. There is little modern additions. What about the Islamic rebellion in Iran? What of the guerrilla activities in the US during the Vietnam war? Everything in this book seems to end with Castro. The basic tactics of the guerrilla are explained over and over. Unfortunately, these tactics are much more difficult to employ in modern times. The reactionaries have invested heavily in new technology. For example, the advantages of night attacks are largely ended.
This book needs an updated companion. Perhaps during the aftermath of the next revolution a new more relevant text will be written. I look forward to that publication.
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On Sale at Home of US Special Forces.......2007-09-08
First published in 1965 and recently re-issued, this book is written by the only American who was with Castro instead of the CIA at the Bay of Pigs. In retrospect, and given that the anti-Castro Cuban exiles used their CIA training to assassinate John F. Kennedy (see Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History, this American is clearly a just man and a wise man.
There are two bottom lines to this book:
1. No indigenous people have ever lost, in the very long run, to foreign occupiers. See also The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
2. The win-win for both democracy and capitalism is to do away with unilateral militarism, immoral capitalism, and predatory "false" democracy that embraces dictators rather than publics. See Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions; The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project); Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror; and Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025, among others.
The author ends the book with three recommendations for US foreign policy that I for one happily adopt:
1. Abandon all forms of military assistance
2. Declare an Economic "New Deal" for the Third World starting in South America and the Caribbean and Central America.
3. Embrace the Revolution, and live up to our Constitutional ideals of justice and liberty for all.
The author packs numerous pearls of wisdom, firmly rooted in ground truth, into this book.
1. Governments assume they are legitimate when they are not, they assume a monopoly on force while ignoring crime. Legitimacy and morality are strategic assets that most governments have abandoned. Cf. The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century.
2. Terrorism has been the logical asymmetric response of the poor and down-trodden since time immemorial. The author points out the hypocrisy of Israel, which was founded on the basis of terrorism against the people, claiming that terrorism targets non-combatants, while we ignore the fact that the US Air Force bombs entire villages of non-combatants without a second thought.
3. Class war produces the conditions that spawn successful revolutions, which the author is careful to define as those revolutions that have or can acquire popular support. The corruption at the top, and the poverty at the bottom, eventually collide.
4. Guns are the least important tool of the guerrilla (and all of the guns are provided by the occupying power or the illegitimate military). Guerilla operations are a state of mind, a spreading awareness of the possibilities of ultimate invincibility, firmly founded in root legitimacy.
5. The author points out the two fallacies to avoid, both heavily characteristic of current US operations in Iraq:
a. Revolutions and insurgency are NOT a conspiracy, e.g. Iran may be aiding the insurgency in Iraq, but at root the insurgency is home grown and will continue until the US is driven out.
b. Counter-insurgency is NOT about tactical "methods." The long war is about the will and rights of the people everywhere. As General Smedley Butler, USMC concluded, War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
6. The author is a gifted writer. He points out that conventional armies are burdened by a dependence on bases and "things" (vehicles, weapons systems) while the guerilla is "liberated" by their poverty, able to move past roadblocks by simply walking in the jungle 100 meters to the left or right. Conventional forces focus on patrols and real estate. The guerilla focuses on the message and the public.
7. The guerilla is a voice, a message. The fact that the guerilla exists means that the political process has FAILOED. The primary asset the guerilla has is not a weapon, but their relationship with the community of people within which they survive.
8. The author believes that in the era of globalization, the laboring class has been empowered but does not fully realize its power to carry out a legal general strike, to demand labor unions, to not consume products whose "true cost" is onerous.
9. The guerilla is militarily weak but politically strong and economically dangerous. I continue to marvel at the idiocy of Dick Cheney in seeking to capture Iraq's oil and intimidate Iran (Persia) while ignoring the fact that ten oil pumping stations in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, if blown up, can take oil to $200 a barrel overnight.
10. Three conditions are cited as being necessary for a revolution:
a. No other alternative.
b. Cause is compelling.
c. Possibility of success.
11. A general strike by the public can follow an armed insurrection, or stand on its own as a clear signal to the government that it has lost its legitimacy and authority. I cannot help but feel that the United States of America is today badly in need of a legal ethical general strike by the public that continues until Dick Cheney resigns from office and Congress declares an end to our unilateral militarism around the world.
12. The essence of guerilla warfare is to take the profit out of oppression and occupation (colonialism, corruption by corporations) with a clever strategy that is clearly and publicly enunciated, and popular as well.
13. Time, space, and will favor the people over any occupying force. Occupiers lose twice:
a. Their presence provokes anger in the people.
b. They supply the insurgents with all the arms, ammunition, food, and other supplies needed (this is one of two dirty little secrets of the US occupation of Iraq; the other is that we have returned 75,000 of our honorable men and women to America as multiple amputees who are not being well served by the Veteran's Administration).
14. US *talks* about hearts and minds but *spends* only on death and destruction. We are still not serious about global stabilization & reconstruction, humanitarian assistance & disaster relief.
As I put the book down on the flight back from Tampa, I thought to myself that this author is completely correct in pointing out that terrorism is of, by, and for the indigenous people, and it is neither deviant nor apart from the fabric of the society it seeks to save. The author also points out that terrorism is vastly less costly than conventional war in every sense of the word: dead, wounded, collateral damage, destruction of infrastructure, and financial as well as moral cost. The author makes it quite clear that the USA is in *denial* when if fails to understand that an insurgency is a civil war, not a conspiracy or communist or terrorist inspired "conspiracy."
The latter half of the book provides a series of truly absorbing and sensible "lessons learned:"
1. Algeria taught us that urban areas can be occupied and dominated by torture, but at a cost so huge that the occupying government is weakened politically and economically. Cheney remains in denial on this point.
2. The three "failures" of indigenous revolution in the short term:
a. Philippines, government combined social work with amnesty and land grants that took away the basis for revolution among the Huks.
b. Malaysia, the insurgents lacked a rural base with its own food production capability, and could be isolated.
c. Greece, the guerillas lost contact with the public and lost militarily by engaging conventionally.
The author cites Sun Tzu in pointing out that there is nothing "modern" about terrorism or warfare. It is all based on deception and competing claims to legitimacy. He lists six conditions for a successful revolution in his conclusion:
1. Valid popular grievances
2. Sharp social divisions (or ethnic)
3. Unsound or stagnant economy
4. Oppressive or illegitimate government
5. Moral leadership within the guerilla movement
6. A foundation on the truth rather than lies
For the 27 secessionist movements in America, the author notes as have others that anytime an empire is engaged in a far-off debilitating military campaign, internal secessions are easier to accomplish.
In my view, the USA is clearly vulnerable to precision sabotage of the kind that Peter Black, Winn Schwartau, and I discussion in the early 1990's. We were ignored, and today our infrastructure is ten times to a hundred times more likely to collapse from its own decrepitude that from "enemy" action. The two "mainstream" political parties are so corrupt they have run American into the ground (Cf. Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
I may never be Director of National Intelligence, since I am predisposed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and that is best gotten with the 96% of the information that the secret world refuses to notice. However, if I were, we would have three objectives and three objectives only:
1. Terminating all dictators through buy out plans they cannot refuse.
2. Ending all corruption by any government, organization, or individual.
3. Providing free connectivity and free on demand education in all languages to all people, with hundreds of millions of volunteer tutors able to education the five billion poor "one cell call at a time."
Guerrilla Warfare lessons never learned........2007-06-13
Oddly enough the US Military refuses to study and learn from Guerrilla wars we've been in. They all want to fight WWII all over again. That's why they loved Desert Storm 1. Now they are in Iraq and can't get out of it. The politicians and generals and people at the Pentagon ought to be made to read these books ever few years.
A good read.
The Best Work on Guerrilla Warfare.......2007-05-30
Seeking to learn more about guerrilla warfare, I read Che's Guerrilla Warfare and Mao's On Guerrilla Warfare, yet I felt somewhat unsatisfied with each of those works and purchased Taber's War of the Flea hoping for better. Taber's work far outshines the works of Che and Mao. Taber has the advantage of not having a legend to defend and draws from both works, as well as The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Taber focuses not only on the Marxist inspired revolutions of recent times, but also on the revolutions of national liberation in Palestine, Cypress, and Ireland. Through all of these, he demonstrates how the application of the philosophy behind Guerrilla warfare presents the organized state or foreign colonist with only the prospect of political and/or military defeat.
The lessons in Taber's work are as true today as they have been throughout time. They are lessons that Americans should learn. One cannot win a war against guerrillas. One can either pull out, reach a negotiated defeat, or expend one's precious time, resources and the lives of the young in a hopeless struggle descending into inevitable defeat.
Reprint of a Classic.......2007-02-21
There have been a lot of books on guerrilla warfare. They typically fall into one of two categories. Those by Americans are written by university or military types who have studed irregular warfare from an academic or counter guerrilla war aspect. (Example, the forward to this book by Bard E. O'Neill of the National War College.) The other class of books are those written by practictionners who are not American such as Che Guevara. This book was written by an American serving with Castro's forces during the revolution in Cuba.
The book was first published in 1965 and became a classic. Long since out of print, the occassional rare copy that became available was quickly purchased at any price. Now Potomac Books has reprinted the original book, with as stated, a new forward.
If you are headed to Iraq buy it, it will give you a better understanding of what's going on. If you're interested in Iraq, buy it before it is gone again. If you're in the media, don't bother, your interest is ratings not reporting.
Book Description
Iran and Lebanon have touched each other's fortunes, on religious, political, and cultural levels, for over 500 years. Iran and Lebanon is the first definitive study of the centuries-long contact between these countries, and provides the only basis for any understanding of their effect on the world today.
Book Description
It is significant that Alfred J, Butler's book, The Arab Conquest of Egypt, and the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion, first published in 1902, is being republished at this time. The African converts to Islam in Africa and those abroad have at last begun to lose some of their romanticism about the Arabs and Islam and are now asking some pertinent questions about this religion and it's original propagators that they should have asked long ago.
Amazon.com
With the turn of the century approaching, talk of the apocalypse runs rampant. In The Last Apocalypse, James Reston reminds us that such talk is nothing new. At the previous turn of the millennium, Vikings, Moors, and Hungarian Magyars beseiged Europe with wanton cruelty and violence, spreading fear and destruction wherever they went and leading many to believe that the end of the world was near. Such colorful characters as Sigrid the Haughty, Svein Forkbeard, Ethelred the Unready, and Al-Mansor the Illustrious Victor were the heroes and villains of the era.
Reston, author of previous works that include Galileo: A Life and Sherman's March, evokes the historical essence of the time using limited legal and church documents, archaeological artifacts, and rare contemporary literary accounts. Reston's history reads like an engrossing novel, carefully crafted without getting bogged down in dry details. He skillfully interweaves the complex story of how each European country dealt with these changes, bringing the period back to life.
Reston portrays A.D. 999 as a profound turning point for mankind, mapping out the fate of each country as the Christian kingdoms, unified in belief, brutally conquered and imposed the will of Christianity upon heathen Europe. In the space of 60 years, the established ruling elite were slaughtered or forced to succumb to the turning religious tide. By A.D. 1050, the sign of the cross fell like an ominous shadow across Europe, paradoxically signifying the dawn of peace under Christian unity.
Book Description
Enter the world of 1000 A.D., when Vikings, Moors, and barbarians battled kings and popes for the fate of Europe.
As the millennium approached, Europeans feared the world would end. The old order was crumbling, and terrifying and confusing new ideas were gaining hold in the populace. Random and horrific violence seemed to sprout everywhere without warning, and without apparent remedy. And, in fact, when the millennium arrived the apocalypse did take place; a world did end, and a new world arose from the ruins.
In 950, Ireland, England, and France were helpless against the ravages of the seagoing Vikings; the fierce and strange Hungarian Magyars laid waste to Germany and Italy; the legions of the Moors ruled Spain and threatened the remnants of Charlemagne's vast domain. The papacy was corrupt and decadent, overshadowed by glorious Byzantium. Yet a mere fifty years later, the gods of the Vikings were dethroned, the shamans of the Magyars were massacred, the magnificent Moorish caliphate disintegrated: The sign of the cross held sway from Spain in the West to Russia in the East.
James Reston, Jr.'s enthralling saga of how the Christian kingdoms converted, conquered, and slaughtered their way to dominance brings to life unforgettable historical characters who embodied the struggle for the soul of Europe. From the righteous fury of the Viking queen Sigrid the Strong-Minded, who burned unwanted suitors alive; to the brilliant but too-cunning Moor Al-Mansor the Illustrious Victor; to the aptly named English king Ethelred the Unready; to the abiding genius of the age, Pope Sylvester II--warrior-kings and concubine empresses, maniacal warriors and religious zealots, bring this stirring period to life.
The Last Apocalypse is a book rich in personal historical detail, flavored with the nearly magical sensibility of an apocalyptic age.
James Reston, Jr., is the author of ten previous books, including Galileo: A Life and Sherman's March and Vietnam. He has written for The New Yorker, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Time, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. His television work includes three "Frontline" documentaries, including "Eighty-Eight Seconds in Greensboro." The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars provided him with a Visiting Fellowship during the course of his work on this book. Reston lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Customer Reviews:
Reston is the best.......2007-06-04
When it comes to reviewing history and religion's influence on it's progression, James Reston, Jr. is the best there is. This book was terrific and covered an era not covered in most college or high school text books.
What struck me the most is how the kingdoms which would evolve into Europe used the sword to spread Christianity as much as the Muslims did to spread their faith, and just like the Muslim empire, faith was merely an excuse to gain more power. Reston explores the time period leading to the last millineum and gives in depth views on a cadre of historical leaders, from King Olaf, the viking King, to Otto III, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; Stephen I, founder of modern day Hungary, to Al Mansor and the Spanish Moor empire. If you want to know how Europe became Europe, and about what facts lead to the Cruisades, then this book is for you.
An enjoyable read, but jumped around a bit.......2007-06-01
I enjoyed most of the way this book was written. The chapters follow a main character around for the extent of his/her life, which was an enjoyable way to tell the story of the time period, except that at times the events being portrayed did not seem to be chronological (within a chapter) so such an extent that I had trouble tracking the text. This was a small annoyance, more prevalent during the Viking chapters, and on the whole this was a quick, informative, and enjoyable read.
Error-ridden........2007-05-11
I agree with those who say this book seems written to fill a perceived sales-niche. If you know anything about medieval history, you'll find errors in this book. The one that was the deal-breaker for me was when the author said that the Church had "pleasing" ceremonies for marriage. The Church had, in fact, no marriage ceremony in the year 1000. A very little research would have turned this fact up.
Engaging, if stretched........2004-05-05
In this volume Reston demonstrates his talent for readable popular history. There's nothing new in his story of close of the first millenium. Rather, it's an entertaining synthesis of what had long been known about those years. As reviewer Susan Zuckerman rightly suggests (see below), Reston forces his thesis a bit. The pagan Norse of Norway and Iceland, for example, would surely have seen Olaf Tryggvason as a fierce and successful warrior, but hardly as a bearer of the apocalypse, a Christian concept still foreign to them. Still, if you're looking for a page-turner about a fascinating moment of medieval history, give The Last Apoclaypse a try.
For a history of Europe at 1000 it was great.......2003-11-10
As science major I missed all these European history classes and am now trying to catch up. I really liked this book as it gives both a factual, names places and dates history with events that give those facts meaning. And yes the history of Otto as Holy Roman Emperor is a bit dry (that's the end of the book.) But I found fastenating that the Icelandic people all met for a week to decide whether to become "Christan" and under pain of invasion from Norway decided to join. And yes its not clear that the number 1000 really meant anything in particular to the average joe, but it does help one reflect just how far we've come and how far we have yet to go.
Book Description
In presenting an enchanting and colorful tale of the ice age history, this book provides an informative and much-needed survey of geological history over the past 2.5 million years. Dramatic changes took place in this period both in climate and physical geographical conditions. Striking
landscape features were formed and sediments were deposited which are of utmost importance for the global environment, including vegetation, animal life, and human life. Topics of the book include: evolution of the glacial theory, scientific techniques, warming and deglaciation, and early humans,
among many others. Expertly written by two leading scientists who have contributed greatly to our understanding of the ice age world, the book is lavishly illustrated and contains numerous enlightening maps. It will appeal to all students and researchers involved in the earth and atmospheric
sciences.
Customer Reviews:
In from the cold: a review of The Ice Age World.......2000-04-03
The Ice Age World by Bjorn Andersen and Harold Borns, Jr. is an excellent resource for those interested in the the glacial history of North America and Europe. The beautiful full-colour illustrations and photographs, accompanied by clear and informative captions, make this book ideal for all knowledge-levels. The section on processes and scientific methods, as well as the extended glossary, are invaluable to the student of quaternary geology. The Ice Age World is as "at home" by the fire as it is in the classroom.
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Italy in the Last Fifteen Hundred Years
Reinhold Schumann , and
Schumann
Manufacturer: University Press of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| England
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0819180858 |
Book Description
An updated edition of the original, published in 1986 by UPA; the book is divided into four parts: From Byzantium to the Communes, 476-1122; From the Communes to the High Renaissance, 1122-1534; Italy Between the Hapsburgs and the French, 1534-1814; Italy in the Modern World. The author describes recent events in the Epilogue.
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Kinientos: New pictures of an old world : an anthology commemorating the last 500 years
Manufacturer: Wordsworth
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| African American
| Asian American
| Classics
| Collections & Readers
| Drama
| General
| Hispanic
| History & Criticism
| Humor
| Jewish American
| Letters & Correspondence
| Native American
| Poetry
| Short Stories
| Women Writers
ASIN: 0945530072 |
Book Description
The Third Crusade of Richard the Lionheart is well known but the build-up to it less so. Yet the years that led up to the Battle of Hattin in 1187 resonant with intrigue, plot and counter-plot, and the abuse of power. This is the story of those events, involving the greatest of the military orders, the Templars and their key ally, the ruthless Reynald of Chatillon, and how they seized a throne, sought to rule a kingdom and eventually, as a result, lost it. In the 1180s the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem was ruled by a weak king, Guy of Lusignan. A puppet, placed on the throne by power-hungry âhawks’ Reynald of Chatillon and Templar Grand Master, Gerard de Ridfort, he was the worst possible ruler at this crucial time. Arrayed against the hawks was a group of âdoves’, those who wished to have some form of accommodation with the Muslims. This infighting among the Christian forces, coupled with the rise of a Muslim leader of genius, Salah ed-Din Yusuf, Saladin, led almost inevitably to the fateful field of Hattin. Wayne Bartlett reveals the causes and the aftermath of one of the few battles that can truly be called decisive.
Books:
- Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for Its Contemporary Relevance (S U N Y Series in Philosophy)
- A Rifleman Went to War
- A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City--A Diary
- American Civil War Artillery 1861-65 (1): Field Artillery (New Vanguard)
- American Civil War Fortifications (1): Coastal brick and stone forts (Fortress)
- An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural
- Anglo-Saxon Thegn AD 449-1066: With visitor information (Trade Editions)
- Armies of Ivan the Terrible: Russian Troops 1505-1700 (Men-at-Arms)
- Atlantic: The Last Great Race of Princes
- Battles of the Revolutionary War: 1775-1781 (Major Battles and Campaigns Series)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Beyond Tears: Living After Losing a Child
- The Photobook: A History - Volume 2
- Realms of the Arcane
- The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography
- The Quantum Theory of Fields, Volume 1: Foundations
- The Ghost Brigades
- Training the East German Labour Force: Microeconometric Evaluations of Continuous Vocational Trainin
- The Corporate Mule: Don't Give Up Your Soul for the Company Goal : A Novel
- Regional & Urban Economics II: Harwood Fundamentals of Applied Economics
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
On Guerrilla Warfare
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods
The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era)
