Hearts and minds
Subtitle: a people's history of counterinsurgency
By: edited by Hannah Gurman
Series: New Press people's history; New Press people's history
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 273
ISBN-13: 9781595588258
Subjects: Counterinsurgency; Case studies; History
Description: The first book of its kind, "Hearts and Minds" is a scathing response to the grand narrative of U.S. counterinsurgency, in which warfare is defined not by military might alone but by winning the "hearts and minds" of civilians. Dormant as a tactic since the days of the Vietnam War, in 2006 the U.S. Army drafted a new field manual heralding the resurrection of counterinsurgency as a primary military engagement strategy; counterinsurgency campaigns followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that counterinsurgency had utterly failed to account for the actual lived experiences of the people whose hearts and minds America had sought to win. Drawing on leading thinkers in the field and using key examples from Malaya, the Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq, and Afghanistan, "Hearts and Minds" brings a long-overdue focus on the many civilians caught up in these conflicts. Both urgent and timely, this important book challenges the idea of a neat divide between insurgents and the populations from which they emerge--and should be required reading for anyone engaged in the most important contemporary debates over U.S. military policy.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Malaya-between two terrors : "people's history" and the Malayan Emergency / Karl Hack; title: The Philippines-"engendering" counterinsurgency : the battle to win the hearts and minds of women during the Huk rebellion in the Philippines / Vina A. Lanzona; title: Vietnam-uprooting the revolution : counterinsurgency in Vietnam / Hannah Gurman; title: El Salvador-the creation of the internal enemy : pondering the legacies of U.S anticommunism, counterinsurgency, and authoritarianism in El Salvador (1952-81) / Joaquin M. Chavez; title: Iraq, part I-counterinsurgency in Iraq / Rick Rowley; title: Iraq, part II-February 2006-December 2012 : new allies, old tactics / David Enders; title: Afghanistan, part I-"you have to not mind killing innocents" : American COIN operations in Afghanistan and the violence of empire / Jeremy Kuzmarov; title: Afghanistan, part II-counterinsurgency in Afghanistan : myth or reality? / Jean MacKenzie.