British Counterinsurgency

"From the Zionist Revolt in Palestine at the end of the Second World War to the Provisional IRA's campaign in Northern Ireland, the British State has been involved in fighting guerrilla war and rebellion. British Counterinsurgency examines the revolts against British rule in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden and South Yemen, Oman and Northern Ireland, and the methods the British used to fight them. It considers why the British were successful in Malaya, Kenya and Oman, why they failed in Palestine and South Yeman, and the reasons for the compromise settlements in Cyprus and Northern Ireland. The book looks at the model counterinsurgency campaign in Malaya, the ferocity of repression in Kenya, at the humiliating collapse of British rule in South Yemen, and at the successful containment of, but failure to destroy, the Provisional IRA."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.