Although the term that defines it was coined only little more than two centuries ago, guerrilla warfare has featured prominently in all of human history. Indeed, in its fundamental aspects it predates "regular" war. Even today there is no area of the world that is immune from guerrilla warfare, which is waged from Afghanistan to Belfast, from the forests of Africa to Chechnya, from the Gaza Strip to the Burmese jungle. Guerrilla warfare is the struggle undertaken by the weak via elusive tactics. This book describes guerrilla warfare as it was theorized and put into practice in the works of ancient and modern writers (including Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Lawrence of Arabia, and Che Guevara) and real-life events such as Native Americans' resistance, Viet Nam, Chechnya, and lastly Afghanistan, of which the author has direct experience due to his stint there among Italian military forces.

Gastone Breccia teaches History of Byzantium at the University of Pavia.