Insurgency is a form of warfare as old as warfare itself, and it has gone by many names in the past: guerrilla warfare, partisan warfare, revolutionary warfare, insurrectionary warfare, irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, peoples' war and terrorism. All have been—and are—used to describe the same broad phenomenon, though they do not all have the exact same meaning and have not necessarily been used simultaneously. Modern insurgency, closely identified in the second half of the twentieth century with national liberation struggles and revolutionary Marxism derived from the writings—and practice—of Mao (among others), has a well defined theoretical literature. So, too, does counterinsurgency. There is, likewise, a sizeable historical literature that provides numerous case studies in the field. To borrow an observation of T E Lawrence, himself an insurgent leader:
‘With 2000 years of examples behind us, we have no excuse when fighting for not fighting well'.
This reading list is intended to counter such tempting delusions, or at least to subject them to rigorous scrutiny. It makes no attempt, and no claim, to be exhaustive or definitive: such a list would run to many thousands of entries and quickly prove self-defeating. The list is divided into two parts: a strongly historical section, and a contemporary one. Arguments about insurgency in the present are frequently couched in historical terms, or by appeal to historical precedent. The quality of the argument is often determined by the quality of the history and depth of historical understanding conscripted to support it.
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