Small Wars Journal

Book Review: Guerrillas in History

Sun, 06/05/2011 - 11:17am
Book Review: Guerrillas in History

by Lewis H. Gann

Published by Hoover Institution Press, 1971, 99 pages, Stanford, CA. Out of print, ISBN: 081793281X

Reviewed by Mike Mourouzis

Download the Full Article: Book Review: Guerrillas in History

Guerrillas always win -- at least that was the popular narrative that created an era of infatuation with guerrilla uprisings during the 1960s and 1970s. Consequently, Lewis Gann wrote his monograph on "small wars" to dispel the growing myth that partisan warfare was romantic or novel. His work, Guerrillas in History, follows guerrilla warfare from Biblical times to the book's publishing in 1971. Gann describes the similarities of guerrilla warfare across time and details how guerrillas often lost, a relevant subject given today's threat environment.

Download the Full Article: Book Review: Guerrillas in History

Major Mike Mourouzis is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer and is currently studying Irregular Warfare at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He has previously conducted operations in the CENTCOM and PACOM AORs.

Lewis H. Gann passed in 1997. An expert on Colonialist Africa, his New York Times obituary can be found here.

About the Author(s)