Invisible Armies, Boot - Incomplete

                        One does not really expect a professional historian in the Times to be too harsh when reviewing the work of  another professional.  Yet, the reviewer does suggest that the first few sections of this book "could have been pruned back a bit. The early history feels sketchy...."  This endeavor is  subtitled "An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present."  Undoubtedly, a history of irregular warfare is going to feel chaotic, and kudos to the author for pointing out that throughout most of history war has been 'irregular'.  Nomadic forces, the Mongols in the east and the Huns in the west are superb examples of early  non-state actors with substantial impact on the outcome of world history. Prior to the 17th century, the only state to recruit, train, barrack, and supply standing armies were the Romans. Thus, it is only in modern history that the assessment of irregular and regular forces can truly be made. There is some very interesting discourse about hybrid wars, part guerrilla and part regular, one example of which is our American Revolution. The southern raiders, like the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, wore down Cornwallis, while Washington waited for him to stumble. The author also points out that it was the first time that the concept of public opinion impacted an outcome. There was substantial opposition to the war within Britain that led to a discontinuation of an effort well within their capabilities to carry on. The Times reviewer also points out that, "The effort to link guerrillas and terrorists does not come off."  The author cites the Social Revolutionaries in Russia as successful terrorists, as they killed a Czar and, in the twenty years run up to the November Revolution wreaked havoc in Russia.  But, it took  three years of a failed war effort to topple the  Russian Empire.  The first practitioners of irregular warfare  to successfully overthrow the shackles of occupation and domination were the Irish.  Here too public opinion made it impossible to do to the Irish what the British had done to the Boers twenty years earlier or were doing to the Iraqis at the same time. It's hard to slaughter non-combatants or put in concentration camps people who are represented in Parliament.  Ultimately, the reviewer observes that the book "really has two authors, sometimes working together, sometimes not". And ultimately, I put the book down. The jumping around from era to era; the chapters that were sometimes less than ten pages and my inability to find the binding thread made the whole process - well, chaotic for me.