Subcommander Marcos made his debut on the world stage on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect. At dawn, from a town-hall balcony he announced that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation had seized several towns in the Mexican state of Chiapas in rebellion against the government; by sunset Marcos was on his way to becoming the most famous guerrilla leader since Che Guevara. Subsequently, through a succession of interviews, communiques, and public spectacles, the Subcommander emerged as a charismatic spokesperson for the indigenous Zapatista uprising and a rallying figure in the international anti-globalization movement.In this, the first English-language biography of Subcommander Marcos, Nick Henck describes the thought, leadership, and personality of this charismatic rebel spokesperson. He traces Marcos's development from his provincial middle-class upbringing, through his academic career and immersion in the clandestine world of armed guerrillas, to his emergence as the iconic Subcommander. Henck reflects on what motivated an urbane university professor to reject a life of comfort in Mexico City in favor of one of hardship as a guerrilla in the mountainous jungles of Chiapas, and he examines how Marcos became a conduit through which impoverished indigenous Mexicans could communicate with the world. Henck fully explores both the rebel leader's renowned media savvy and his equally important flexibility of mind. He shows how Marcos's speeches and extensive writings demonstrate not only the Subcommander's erudition but also his rejection of Marxist dogmatism. Finally, Henck contextualizes Marcos, locating him firmly within the Latin American guerrilla tradition.

The turbulent occupation of Iraq has once again embroiled the United States military in an unconventional war. "Chasing Ghosts" is a study of unconventional warfare in American military history and its implications for the present and future. John J. Tierney examines America's numerous past experiences with this type of warfare from the Revolutionary War, when American irregulars fought the British and Loyalists, through the Vietnam War, which involved the U.S. military in its largest-ever counterinsurgency campaigns. Other cases covered in the book include guerrilla fighting during the American Civil War; wars between the United States and Native Americans; the Philippine Insurrection; the campaign against Mexico's Pancho Villa; U.S. occupations of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua; and other examples from World War II and the Cold War.Most of America's past encounters with this type of warfare have been forgotten, requiring successive generations of military strategists and policy makers to stumble for answers and improvise strategies every time. While each war has its own unique circumstances, Tierney's analytical history will provide the case studies necessary to reduce this continual relearning process in the future. By illuminating this extensive and largely forgotten history, Tierney aims to better inform policy makers, the military, and the public about if, when, and how the United States should fight unconventional wars.

In Resisting Rebellion, Anthony James Joes explores insurgencies ranging across five continents and spanning more than two centuries. Analyzing examples from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, he identifies recurrent patterns and offers useful lessons for future policymakers. Insurgencies arise from many sources of discontent, including foreign occupation, fraudulent elections, and religious persecution, but they also stem from ethnic hostilities, the aspirations of would-be elites, and traditions of political violence. Because insurgency is as much a political phenomenon as a military one, effective counterinsurgency requires a thorough understanding of the insurgents' motives and sources of support. Clear political aims must guide military action if a counterinsurgency is to be successful and prepare a lasting reconciliation within a deeply fragmented society. The most successful counterinsurgency campaign undertaken by the United States was the one against Philippine insurgents following the Spanish-American War. But even more instructive than successful counterinsurgencies are the persistent patterns of errors revealed by Joes's comparative study. Instances include the indiscriminate destructiveness displayed by the Japanese in China and the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the torture of suspected Muslim terrorists by members of the French Army in Algeria. Joes's comprehensive twofold approach to counterinsurgency is easily applied to the U.S. The first element, developing the strategic basis for victory, emphasizes creating a peaceful path to the redress of legitimate grievances, committing sufficient troops to the counterinsurgent operation, and isolating the conflict area from outside aid. The second element aims at marginalizing the insurgents and includes fair conduct toward civilians and prisoners, systematic intelligence gathering, depriving insurgents of weapons and food, separating insurgent leaders from their followers, and offering amnesty to all but the most incorrigible. Providing valuable insights into a world of conflict, Resisting Rebellion is a thorough and readable exploration of successes and failures in counterinsurgency's long history and a strategy for the future.

The turbulent occupation of Iraq has once again embroiled the United States military in an unconventional war. "Chasing Ghosts" is a study of unconventional warfare in American military history and its implications for the present and future. John J. Tierney examines America's numerous past experiences with this type of warfare from the Revolutionary War, when American irregulars fought the British and Loyalists, through the Vietnam War, which involved the U.S. military in its largest-ever counterinsurgency campaigns. Other cases covered in the book include guerrilla fighting during the American Civil War; wars between the United States and Native Americans; the Philippine Insurrection; the campaign against Mexico's Pancho Villa; U.S. occupations of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua; and other examples from World War II and the Cold War.Most of America's past encounters with this type of warfare have been forgotten, requiring successive generations of military strategists and policy makers to stumble for answers and improvise strategies every time. While each war has its own unique circumstances, Tierney's analytical history will provide the case studies necessary to reduce this continual relearning process in the future. By illuminating this extensive and largely forgotten history, Tierney aims to better inform policy makers, the military, and the public about if, when, and how the United States should fight unconventional wars.

The product of nearly 25 years of research, Pershing: General of the Armies remains one of the most authoritative biographies of the man known as "Black Jack." Newly appointed head of the American Expeditionary Forces, Pershing sailed for Europe in May 1917. Once in France, he set about the task of building an army. By October the Americans were at the front and over the next year became involved in increasingly significant battles, all vividly recounted here: Cantigny, Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, Soissons, St. Mihiel, and the 47-day slugfest in the Meuse-Argonne. Although the impact of the American forces on the outcome of the war has been much debated, there is no question that the troops acquitted themselves well under Pershing s command. Pershing s postwar life included an unsuccessful run for president, a stint as Chief of Staff, and a secret romance with a French woman 34 years younger than he; nonetheless, his influence as a leader extended into World War II."

The concept of the farmer and shopkeeper pulling rifles off pegs on the wall to fight the British has been the typical image of the American minuteman. The fact that he may have had military training and drilled-and that April 19, 1775 was not his first battle-usually goes unmentioned. Winner of the American Revolution Round Table Award, "The Minute Men" will be of keen interest to those curious about the true history of some of America's first soldiers.

The jagged edges of South American societies attest to innumerable wars, relentless poverty, and a host of illicit activity that make the region a tumultuous brew of politics and military aggression. Peru in particular suffered one of the bloodiest civil wars in contemporary Latin American history during the 1980s and early 1990s, when the Sendero Luminoso, or “ Shining Path, ” launched an assault to overthrow the national government. Lewis Taylor focuses here on an under-examined yet crucially important aspect of this pivotal conflict, the Northern Front in the northern highlands of Peru. 
"Shining Path "opens with a historical overview of Sendero Luminoso, moving from its origins to how it grew  to sufficient size and strength to attempt revolt. Taylor then probes the development and progress of the Sendero Luminoso’ s revolutionary campaign from 1982 through 1992, analyzing the factors that catalyzed and sustained a war in which nearly 70,000 lives were lost. The nature of rural revolt and revolution is a central issue to this study, and Taylor investigates particular conflicts in the mountainous northern highlands as a vital case study for guerrilla warfare in harsh rural landscapes. 
The wars of the twenty-first century have been marked by the increasingly successful use of guerrilla warfare. Thus "Shining Path "is a timely analysis of the political and structural nature of such warfare and how it will transform the notion and actuality of war in years to come.

Biographers and historians have lionized Heinz Guderian as the legendary father of the German armored force and brilliant practitioner of "blitzkrieg" maneuver warfare. As Russell A. Hart argues, Guderian created this legend with his own highly influential yet self-serving and distorted memoir, which remains one of the most widely read accounts of the Second World War. Unfortunately, too many of Guderian's biographers have accepted his view of his accomplishments at face value, without sufficient critical scrutiny, resulting in an undeserved hagiography. While undoubtedly a great military figure of appreciable ego and ambition and with a volatile, impetuous, and difficult personality, Guderian was determined to achieve his vision of a war-winning armored force irrespective of the consequences. He proved to be a man who was politically naive enough to fall under the sway of Hitler and National Socialism and yet arrogant enough to believe he could save Germany from inevitable defeat late in the war, despite Hitler's interference. At the same time, Guderian was unwilling either to participate in attempts to remove Hitler or to denounce as traitors the conspirators who did. In the end, he distorted the truth to establish his place in history. In the process, he denigrated the myriad important contributions of his fellow officers as he took personal credit for what were, in reality, collective accomplishments. Thus, he succeeded in creating a legend that has endured long after his death. This brief biography puts the record straight by placing Guderian's career and accomplishments into sharper and more accurate relief. It exposes the real Heinz Guderian, not the man of legend.

The two volumes of "Understanding Civil War" build upon the World Bank's prior research on conflict and violence, particularly on the work of Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, whose model of civil war onset has sparked much discussion on the relationship between conflict and development in what came to be known as the "greed" versus "grievance" debate. The authors systematically apply the Collier-Hoeffler model to 15 countries in 6 different regions of the world, using a comparative case study methodology to revise and expand upon economic models of civil war. The book concludes that the "greed" versus "grievance" debate should be abandoned for a more complex model that considers greed and grievance as inextricably fused motives for civil war.

The two volumes of 'Understanding Civil War' build upon the World Bank's prior research on conflict and violence, particularly on the work of Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, whose model of civil war onset has sparked much discussion on the relationship between conflict and development in what came to be known as the 'greed' versus 'grievance' debate.The authors systematically apply the Collier-Hoeffler model to 15 countries in 6 different regions of the world, using a comparative case study methodology to revise and expand upon economic models of civil war. The book concludes that the 'greed' versus 'grievance' debate should be abandoned for a more complex model that considers greed and grievance as inextricably fused motives for civil war.

During World War II, Roger Hilsman fought in Burma with the legendary Merrill's Marauders until he was machine-gunned. Then, at age twenty-five, he led a battalion of indigenous troops behind Japanese lines. At the war's end, he headed a POW rescue mission to Manchuria, where the prisoners included his own father. An exciting, unusual coming-of-age story, "American Guerrilla" concludes with reflections on how Hilsman's wartime experiences influenced his involvement in early Vietnam War policymaking when he served in the Kennedy administration.

Taking up its position astride the Peking-Mukden [Beijing-Shenyang] railway beginning in January, 1912, the United States Fifteenth Infantry Regiment was engaged in protecting American interests in China. The 1000 man force was especially challenged during the 1920s, those tumultuous years when warlords struggled to gain ascendancy in the Chinese Republic. Although Chiang Kai-shek established a measure of control in China by 1928, the regiment remained in China--partially to counter Japan's increasingly aggressive actions—despite considerable misgivings within and outside of the United States Army as to the feasibility, desirability, and ethical appropriateness of the policy retaining it there. The success of the Japanese in conquering much of eastern China finally compelled Washington to withdraw the regiment on March 2, 1938. This work recounts and assesses some aspects of the involvement and service of the Fifteenth Infantry Regiment during its fateful quarter of a century in the Orient between the World Wars. Also detailed is the Army's service in those years in general. Many insights are provided regarding the self-perceptions of a key generation of U.S. military personnel deployed there.

"Weaving together information from official sources and personal interviews, Barbara Tomblin gives the first full-length account of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in the Second World War. She describes how over 60,000 army nurses, all volunteers, cared for sick and wounded American soldiers in every theater of the war, serving in the jungles of the Southwest Pacific, the frozen reaches of Alaska and Iceland, the mud of Italy and northern Europe, or the heat and dust of the Middle East. Many of the women in the Army Nurse Corps served in dangerous hospitals near the front lines -- 201 nurses were killed by accident or enemy action, and another 1,600 won decorations for meritorious service. These nurses address the extreme difficulties of dealing with combat and its effects in World War II, and their stories are all the more valuable to women's and military historians because they tell of the war from a very different viewpoint than that of male officers. Although they were unable to achieve full equality for American women in the military during World War II, army nurses did secure equal pay allowances and full military rank, and they proved beyond a doubt their ability and willingness to serve and maintain excellent standards of nursing care under difficult and often dangerous conditions.

Tank destroyers were the US Army's response to blitzkrieg, and were based around the concept of mounting a large anti-tank gun on a light, fast moving vehicle. They served in the Mediterranean, Pacific, and North-West Europe theatres, and were also supplied to other Allied armies. These vehicles form an attractive modelling subject; their open turrets provide plenty of opportunity for detail work, as demonstrated here by the author in clear step-by-step instructions. Packed with tips and techniques from a leading modeller and Allied armour expert, this title covers the M10, M18, M36, and M39, and features modelling projects in 1/35th and 1/72nd scale.

Prompted by the earnest entreaties of his friends rather than by any wish of his own to relate his experiences, Mr. Slatin wrote these chapters. The author held high posts in the Sudan, traveled throughout the length and breadth of the country and, a perfect master of the language, he had opportunities which few others had to accurately describe affairs such as they were in the last days of the Egyptian Administration. While his experiences during his cruel captivity place him in a perfectly unique position as the highest authority on the rise, progress and wane of that great religious movement which wrenched the country from its conquerors and dragged it back into an almost indescribable condition of religious and moral decadence.

" The Battle Rages Higher tells, for the first time, the story of the Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry, a hard-fighting Union regiment raised largely from Louisville and the Knob Creek valley where Abraham Lincoln lived as a child. Although recruited in a slave state where Lincoln received only 0.9 percent of the 1860 presidential vote, the men of the Fifteenth Kentucky fought and died for the Union for over three years, participating in all the battles of the Atlanta campaign, as well as the battles of Perryville, Stones River and Chickamauga. Using primary research, including soldiers' letters and diaries, hundreds of contemporary newspaper reports, official army records, and postwar memoirs, Kirk C. Jenkins vividly brings the Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry to life. The book also includes an extensive biographical roster summarizing the service record of each soldier in the thousand-member unit. Kirk C. Jenkins, a descendant of the Fifteenth Kentucky's Captain Smith Bayne, is a partner in a Chicago law firm. Click here for Kirk Jenkins' website and more information about the 15th Kentucky Infantry.

The roots of American globalization can be found in the War of 1898. Then, as today, the United States actively engaged in globalizing its economic order, itspolitical institutions, and its values. Thomas Schoonover argues that this drive to expand political and cultural reach -- the quest for wealth, missionary fulfillment, security, power, and prestige -- was inherited by the United States from Europe, especially Spain and Great Britain. Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization is a pathbreaking work of history that examines U.S. growth from its early nationhood to its first major military conflict on the world stage, also known as the Spanish-American War. As the new nation's military, industrial, and economic strength developed, the United States created policies designed to protect itself from challenges beyond its borders. According to Schoonover, a surge in U.S. activity in the Gulf-Caribbean and in Central America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was catalyzed by the same avarice and competitiveness that motivated the European adventurers to seek a route to Asia centuries earlier. Addressing the basic chronology and themes of the first century of the nation's expansion, Schoonover locates the origins of the U.S. goal of globalization. U.S. involvement in the War of 1898 reflects many of the fundamental patterns in our national history -- exploration and discovery, labor exploitation, violence, racism, class conflict, and concern for security -- that many believe shaped America's course in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

"[W]e began our advance toward the Mokmer Airstrip. . . . The road climbed a ridge 15 or 20 feet high and we found ourselves on a flat coral plateau sparsely covered by small trees and scrub growth. . . . As we moved westward along the road, two of our destroyers were sailing abreast of the lead elements of the advancing column. The first indication of trouble was the roar of heavy artillery shells sailing over our heads . . . aimed at our destroyers. . . . Shortly after that our forward movement stopped, and we heard heavy firing from the head of the column. . . . As we waited, we began to hear heavy fire from the rear. . . . We were cut off and surrounded!" In the enormous literature of the Second World War, there are surprisingly few accounts of fighting in the southwest Pacific, fewer still by common infantrymen. This memoir, written with a simple and direct honesty that is rare indeed, follows a foot soldier's career from basic training to mustering out. It takes the reader into the jungles and caves of New Guinea and the Philippines during the long campaign to win the war against Japan. From basic training at Camp Roberts through combat, occupation, and the long journey home, Francis Catanzaro's account tells of the excitement, misery, cruelty, and terror of combat, and of the uneasy boredom of jungle camp life. A member of the famed 41st Infantry Brigade, the "Jungleers," Catanzaro saw combat at Hollandia, Biak, Zamboanga, and Mindanao. He was a part of the Japanese occupation force and writes with feeling about living among his former enemies and of the decision to drop the atom bomb. With the 41st Division in the Southwest Pacific is a powerful, gritty, and moving narrative of the life of a soldier during some of the most difficult fighting of World War II.

California Sabers is the story of the California Battalion and Hundred, a group of 500 select men who were the only organized group of Californians to fight in the East during the Civil War. They volunteered their enlistment bounty to pay their passage across Panama and on to
Massachusetts, where they became the cadre of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry.

From mid-1863 to July 1864, the Second Massachusetts fought a bloody guerilla war in northern Virginia against John S. Mosby, the confederacy s "Gray Ghost." In July 1864 the regiment became part of Sheridan s Army of the Shenandoah, and that fall it played a major role in the decisive battles of Winchester, Toms Run, and Cedar Creek.

In early 1865 the regiment was in the column that marched across Virginia destroying the vital railroad and canal that carried supplies from the Shenandoah Valley to the besieged Army of Northern Virginia. In late March, the Second Massachusetts was in the forefront of the battles at Dinwiddie Courthouse and Five Forks, the two actions that finally broke the stalemate at Petersburg and forced Lee to retreat to the west. In the ensuing chase, the regiment was the part of the cavalry spearhead that finally blocked Lee s army at Appomattox Courthouse.

This work, based on extensive research, is the first comprehensive history of this relatively unknown group and will be of great interest to Civil War enthusiasts and historians."

Some of the most brutally intense infantry combat in World War II occurred within Germany's Hrtgen Forest. Focusing on the bitterly fought battle between the American 22d Infantry Regiment and elements of the German LXXIV Korps around Grosshau, Rush chronicles small-unit combat at its most extreme and shows why, despite enormous losses, the Americans persevered in the Hrtgenwald "meat grinder," a battle similar to two punch-drunk fighters staggering to survive the round.

On 16 November 1944, the 22d Infantry entered the Hrtgen Forest as part of the U.S. Army's drive to cross the Roer River. During the next eighteen days, the 22d suffered more than 2,800 casualties-or about 86 percent of its normal strength of about 3,250 officers and men. After three days of fighting, the regiment had lost all three battalion commanders. After seven days, rifle company strengths stood at 50 percent and by battle's end each had suffered nearly 140 percent casualties.

Despite these horrendous losses, the 22d Regiment survived and fought on, due in part to army personnel policies that ensured that unit strengths remained high even during extreme combat. Previously wounded soldiers returned to their units and new replacements, "green" to battle, arrived to follow the remaining battle-hardened cadre. The attack halted only when no veterans remained to follow.

The German units in the Hurtgenwald suffered the same horrendous attrition, with one telling difference. German replacement policy detracted from rather than enhanced German combat effectiveness. Organizations had high paper strength but low manpower, and commanders consolidated decimated units time after time until these ever-dwindling bands of soldiers disappeared forever: killed, wounded, captured, or surrendered.
The performance of American and German forces during this harrowing eighteen days of combat was largely a product of their respective backgrounds, training, and organization. This pre-battle aspect, not normally seen in combat history, helps explain why the Americans were successful and the Germans were not.

Rush's work underscores both the horrors of combat and the resiliency of American organizations. While honoring the sacrifice and triumph of the common soldier, it also compels us to reexamine our views on the requisites for victory on the battlefield.

Since 1983 journalist Bill Berkeley has traveled through Africa's most troubled lands-Rwanda, Liberia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire-seeking out the tyrants and military leaders who orchestrate seemingly intractable wars. Shattering the myth that ancient tribal hatred lies at the heart of the continent's troubles, Berkeley instead holds accountable the "Big Men" who came to power during this period, describing the very rational methods behind their apparent madness. A New Republic Book

A groundbreaking book when first published in Russia in 2005, now Valeriy Zamulin's study of the crucible of combat during the titanic clash at Kursk - the fighting at Prokhorovka - is available in English. A former staff member of the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum, Zamulin has dedicated years of his life to the study of the battle of Kursk, and especially the fighting on its southern flank involving the famous attack of the II SS Panzer Corps into the teeth of deeply-echeloned Red Army defenses. A product of five years of intense research into the once-secret Central Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Zamulin lays out in enormous detail the plans and tactics of both sides, culminating in the famous and controversial clash at Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943. Zamulin skillfully weaves reminiscences of Red Army and Wehrmacht soldiers and officers into the narrative of the fighting, using in part files belonging to the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum. Zamulin has the advantage of living in Prokhorovka, so he has walked the ground of the battlefield many times and has an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Examining the battle from primarily the Soviet side, Zamulin reveals the real costs and real achievements of the Red Army at Kursk, and especially Prokhorovka. He examines mistaken deployments and faulty decisions that hampered the Voronezh Front's efforts to contain the Fourth Panzer Army's assault, and the valiant, self-sacrificial fighting of the Red Army's soldiers and junior officers as they sought to slow the German advance, and then crush the II SS Panzer Corps with a heavy counterattack at Prokhorovka on 12 July. The combat on this day receives particular scrutiny, as Zamulin works to clarify the relative size of the contending forces, the actual area of this battle, and the costs suffered by both sides. The costs to General P. A. Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army and General A. S. Zhadov's 5th Guards Army as they slammed into 1st SS Panzer Grenadier Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, 3rd SS Panzer Grenadier Division Totenkopf and a portion of 2nd SS Panzer Grenadier Division Das Reich were particularly devastating, and Zamulin examines the nuts and bolts of the counteroffensive to see why this was so. Zamulin does not exclude the oft-overlooked efforts of Army Group Kempf's III Panzer Corps on the right-wing of the Fourth Panzer Army, as it sought to keep pace with the II SS Panzer Corps advance, and then breach the line of the Northern Donets River in order to link up with its left-hand neighbor in the region of Prokhorovka. Zamulin describes how the Soviet High Command and the Voronezh Front had to quickly cobble together a defense of this line with already battered units, but needed to reinforce it with fresh formations at the expense of the counterstroke at Prokhorovka. Printed on heavy stock gloss paper, illustrated with many photographs (including a colour section showing present-day views of the battlefield), specially-commissioned colour maps and supplemented with extensive tables of data, Zamulin's book is an outstanding contribution to the growing literature on the battle of Kursk, and further demolishes many of the myths and legends that grew up around this battle.

James W. Johnston was a self-confessed small-town youth, who like so many others patriotically stopped what he was doing and enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor. Johnston chose the Marines, a decision that sent him to years of bloody combat through the Pacific as Allied troops fought their way toward the Japanese home islands. Many did not come back; of those who did, very few have told us what it was like. Johnston tells us directly and honestly, taking us with his First Marine Division through New Guinea, New Britain, Peleliu, and Okinawa.

In one of the very few balanced accounts of Texas's epic struggle for independence from Mexico, Albert Nofi provides a chronicle of the events and personalities of the war. He includes readable and accessible maps of military movements and a strategic and tactical analysis of each battle, supplemented with technical information about the weapons used, casulty data, orders of battle, finances, and the story of a little-known war at sea. Prominent personalities of the was are profiled in sidebars, and maps of military movements are included. Nofi also addresses the extraordinary number of myths that the Alamo has engendered and exposes the truth about a conflict that has taken on legendary proportions.