Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1: The Colonial State
2: Gangsters, Thugs, and Bandits: the Enemies of the Colonial State
3: The Legal Context and Counter-insurgency by Committee
4: Varieties of Coercion: Exemplary Force, Counter-terrorism, and Population Control
5: Britain's "Dirty Wars"?
6: Winning Hearts and Minds
7: Counter-insurgency and the Learning Curve
8: The Problems of Sustainability
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

David French was at the University of York and the War Studies Department at King's College London. He spent 27 years at University College London before taking early retirement in 2008 to become a full-time writer. Professor French is the author of six previous books, and has been the recipient of the Arthur Goodzeit Prize of the New York Military Affairs Symposium. He is a three-time winner of the Templer Medal awarded by the Society for Army Historical Research.
He is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Strategic Studies, and the Council of the Army Records
Society.

Reviews

David French's authoritative...exemplarily fair-minded study...should be compulsory reading for modern British officers
*Max Hastings, Sunday Times*

Brilliant...French explodes the myth that a uniquely British quest to recruit "hearts and minds" made the British end of Empire easy.
*Ben Macintyre, The Times*

a sobering and timely book ... Professor French marshals an impressive volume of archival research ... fluent and always engrossing
*Kenneth Payne, Times Literary Supplement*

a brilliant book that sheds light on a misunderstood and misquoted era ... masterly
*Patrick Mercer, Military History*

a careful, often riveting book that has been constructed on the basis of rigorous archival research. French takes on a major task, insisting on a sweep of place and time that must have demanded he tackle an intimidating quantity of archival material, and the results are frequently a testament to modern historical scholarship.
*Musab Younis, The Oxonian Review*

French's book represents the first comprehensive reassessment of the violence used by the British across the entire range of these insurgencies
*Royal United Services Institute*

Based on unparalleled research into official documents on nine campaigns it is likely to be the authoritative work on the subject for years to come ... Indeed, Professor French has set the bar very high, and that can only be a good thing for the rest of us who yet labour in these contested trenches.
*David Charters, Canadian Military History*

His counter-insurgency volume is ... likely to become the standard work on the subject. Thankfully, he avoid the temptation to adapt the book to the contemporary concerns of the academic-military-industrial complex.
*John Newsinger, Race & Class*