Revolution in the Revolution? is a brilliant, pragmatic assessment of the situation in Latin America in the 1960s. First published in 1967, it became a controversial handbook for guerrilla warfare and revolution, read alongside Che’s own pamphlets, with which it can compete in terms of historical importance and insight to this day. Lucid and compelling, it spares no personage, no institution, and no concept, taking on not only Russian and Chinese strategies but Trotskyism as well. The year it was published, Debray was convicted of guerrilla activities in Bolivia and sentenced to thirty years in prison. He was released in 1970, following an international campaign, which included appeals by Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux, Charles de Gaulle and Pope Paul VI.

The first documented, systematic study of a truly revolutionary subject, this 1937 text remains the definitive guide to guerrilla warfare. It concisely explains unorthodox strategies that transform disadvantages into benefits.

A systematic account of the right to resist oppression and of the forms of armed force it can justify.

Americans like to think of themselves as a peaceful and peace-loving people, and in remembering their own revolutionary past, American historians have long tended to focus on colonial origins and Constitutional aftermath, neglecting the fact that the American Revolution was a long, hard war. In this book, John Shy shifts the focus to the Revolutionary War and explores the ways in which the experience of that war was entangled with both the causes and the consequences of the Revolution itself. This is not a traditional military chronicle of battles and campaigns, but a series of essays that recapture the social, political, and even intellectual dimensions of the military effort that had created an American nation by 1783. Book jacket.

The IRA is one of the oldest terrorist organizations in the world and conducted a ferociously violent campaign for almost thirty years. Now deeply enmeshed in the Northern Ireland peace process, Rogelio Alonso asks why one of the bloodiest terrorist movements of our time decide to swap weapons for the ballot box? Based on over seventy interviews conducted with former and existing members of the IRA, Alonso also provides a rigorous evaluation of the personal and political consequences of the IRA’s campaign of violence. The analysis of these interviews radically challenges the dominant academic analysis of Irish terrorism. This book includes a strong criticism of the armed struggle constructed around the discourse of those who waged it and answers the question faced by many armed revolutionary movements: ‘Was the war worth it?’ Translated from the critically acclaimed Matar por Irlanda and available in English for the first time, this is a provocative and new approach to understanding the IRA. It is essential reading for readers and researchers with an interest in Irish politics and history, terrorism and political violence.

Young Continental soldiers carried a heavy burden in the American Revolution. Their experiences of coming of age during the upheavals of war provide a novel perspective on the Revolutionary era, eliciting questions of gender, family life, economic goals, and politics. "Going for a soldier" forced young men to confront profound uncertainty, and even coercion, but also offered them novel opportunities. Although the war imposed obligations on youths, military service promised young men in their teens and early twenties alternate paths forward in life. Continental soldiers’ own youthful expectations about respectable manhood and their goals of economic competence and marriage not only ordered their experience of military service; they also shaped the fighting capacities of George Washington’s army and the course of the war. Becoming Men of Some Consequence examines how young soldiers and officers joined the army, their experiences in the ranks, their relationships with civilians, their choices about quitting long-term military service, and their attempts to rejoin the flow of civilian life after the war. The book recovers young soldiers’ perspectives and stories from military records, wartime letters and journals, and postwar memoirs and pension applications, revealing how revolutionary political ideology intertwined with rational calculations and youthful ambitions. Its focus on soldiers as young men offers a new understanding of the Revolutionary War, showing how these soldiers’ generational struggle for their own independence was a profound force within America’s struggle for its independence.

A timely work of major historical importance, examining the whole spectrum of events from the 1916 Easter Rising to the current and ongoing peace process, fully updated with a new afterword for the paperback edition. ‘An essential book ... closely-reasoned, formidably intelligent and utterly compelling ... required reading across the political spectrum ... important and riveting’ Roy Foster, The Times ‘An outstanding new book on the IRA ... a calm, rational but in the end devastating deconstruction of the IRA’ Henry McDonald, Observer ‘Superb ... the first full history of the IRA and the best overall account of the organization. English writes to the highest scholarly standards ... Moreover, he writes with the common reader in mind: he has crafted a fine balance of detail and analysis and his prose is clear, fresh and jargon-free ... sets a new standard for debate on republicanism’ Peter Hart, Irish Times 'The one book I recommend for anyone trying to understand the craziness and complexity of the Northern Ireland tragedy.’ Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes

Rebel Politics analyzes the changing dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar, one of the most entrenched armed conflicts in the world. Since 2011, a national peace process has gone hand-in-hand with escalating ethnic conflict. The Karen National Union (KNU), previously known for its uncompromising stance against the central government of Myanmar, became a leader in the peace process after it signed a ceasefire in 2012. Meanwhile, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) returned to the trenches in 2011 after its own seventeen-year-long ceasefire broke down. To understand these puzzling changes, Brenner conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the KNU and KIO, analyzing the relations between rebel leaders, their rank-and-file, and local communities in the context of wider political and geopolitical transformations. Drawing on Political Sociology, Rebel Politics explains how revolutionary elites capture and lose legitimacy within their own movements and how these internal contestations drive the strategies of rebellion in unforeseen ways. Brenner presents a novel perspective that contributes to our understanding of contemporary politics in Southeast Asia, and to the study of conflict, peace and security, by highlighting the hidden social dynamics and everyday practices of political violence, ethnic conflict, rebel governance and borderland politics.

A comprehensive history and comparative analysis of the most important Caribbean armed revolutionary movements during the Cold War era.