am not the kind of person who finds much amusement in history books and stories, in general, but especially war... in part because every writer usually is not merely presenting history but also, often covertly, promoting a political thesis.

But occasionally there is something that lands in my lap and has a thesis that reaches towards a conclusion that is unconventional and nearly apolitical. I read a book called "The World War" which basically went through the history from the beginning of World War 1 until now and after going over all of it, drew the conclusion that every war since then was linked together very closely.

Invisible Armies is another book that I enjoyed reading, and like The World War, comes to a thesis which is largely apolitical.

Invisible armies covers insurgency and counterinsurgency and terrorism dating all the way back to ancient Greece. He describes the tactics, strategies, personalities and the social millieu surrounding the conflicts.

It happens to be that there is no such thing as a war without guerillas somewhere in the picture. The overarching conclusion Boot reaches through the stories and the data, is that terrorism and guerilla warfare are practiced anywhere people fight back against a greater force.

Through the book the question he is asking is what place they have, why do they succeed or fail, and what is central to all of it. It is always present when a government oppresses people, or people have really stupid ideas they are fanatical about, success is related to support from outside parties, especially governments, or internal support from a disenfranchised populace, and in fact the most important factor is the opinions of all parties involved.

A notable part in the book talked about Osama Bin Laden, and illuminated aspects of the story I had never heard of. No mention was made of the suspicious elements such as the asbestos problem, the insurance taken out just before, or the fact one building not hit by planes that fell into its footprint (wtc7), but he does mention that the spectacular collapse was unexpected by the planners.

Of course this was not mentioned, nor really does Boot address the impact of propaganda beyond its' use in "population centric counterinsurgency", nor the fact that aristocracies and merchants and especially bankers use and cultivate war to make money.

Despite this, and besides it is somewhat outside the scope of the book anyway (and it goes very deep into its subject), the thing I liked most about this book is how thoroughly he dresses down radical chic. Like how we see Che Guevara's face on so many people's t-shirts these days, after you read Max Boot's account of Guevara, you would not think in any way was the guy "cool". The only insurgent leader in this book who isn't an uncouth, insane, bloodthirsty, power hungry maniac is Garibaldi. Many who are widely considered not so cool, some are not so bad. Many who people think are evil, were not quite as evil.

It is one of the most pleasant things about this book. He debunks much of the romance and legends and shows you how much more ordinary they were than you probably previously believed.

Anyone who wants an unadorned history of small war and its practitioners and those who opposed them, this is a very worthwhile read.

Rating: * * * * *

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We can't stop here! This is Whale country!

_{Loki was born in Australia, now is wandering Amsterdam again after 9 months in Sofia, Bulgaria. IT generalist, physics theorist, futurist and cyber-agorist. Loki's life mission is to establish a secure, distributed layer atop the internet, and enable space migration, preferably while living in a beautiful mountain house somewhere with a good woman, and lots of farm animals and gardens, where he can also go hunting and camping.}

_{I'm a thoughtocaster, a conundrummer in a band called Life Puzzler. I've flipped more lids than a monkey in a soup kitchen, of the mind. - Xavier, Renegade Angel}

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All images in the above post are either original from me, or taken from Google Image Search, filtered for the right of reuse and modification, and either hotlinked directly, or altered by me