Wars of National Liberation (Smithsonian History of Warfare)

We've all read books and seen TV documentaries about the Vietnam and Korean Wars. What I found interesting in Moran's "Wars of National Liberation" were the smaller, non-American wars that I wouldn't ever think of reading an entire book about. Think these wars were insignificant? Moran weaves them all into the familiar history of the Cold War and explains their impact on the 20th Century. Read about Mao's China, the French experience in Vietnam, the French in Algeria, the British departure from India and the creation of Pakistan, the continent-wide problems of Africa and South America, and the three Arab-Israeli wars. The photos are numerous and interesting and the maps superb. The book also includes a chronology from 1945 to 1975 leading to these wars as well as brief biographies of the key players in each conflict. All-in-all a great introduction to several conflicts that you may end up wanting to learn more about.

In "Wars of National Liberation," Daniel Moran sets out to change the way we think about many of the wars that have characterized the world stage since the end of World War II. "War since 1945," he writes, is a "category that would have to disappear some day." The title of this interesting and insightful history is Moran's candidate for a new categorization.When I first glanced through this 224-page volume, I was struck by its thoroughness. Moran, whom I have heard speak at the Naval Postgraduate School where he is a professor, provides the reader with 23 illustrative maps, a convenient reference chronology from 1945 to 1975, biographical notes on key personalities, and a list of suggested further reading.Space limitations preclude an in-depth examination of the wars Moran discusses, but his work is comprehensive. The major geographical areas featuring wars of national liberation in the 30-year span covered by Moran include China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Algeria, Africa and South Asia, Latin America, Israel, and Vietnam. Moran concludes with a brief discussion of historical wars in Afghanistan.Moran points out that the term "national liberation" is a revolutionary slogan, "designed to conceal sordid truths. It served," he continues, "to hurl back into the face of the oppressor the idea of the nation, which Europe invented, and the ideal of liberty, which the West cherishes above all others in politics, while deflecting attention from the methods and interests of the liberators themselves."Moran argues that while in some cases a war of national liberation has resulted in a new national identity where society lives in freedom, more often the result has been to replace one form of despotism with another. And the "liberator" of tomorrow may not necessarily have to find a former Western colonial power to take on.Given the recent horrific events in the American homeland, this is a timely work. It is not for the reason of the War on Terror that "Wars of National Liberation" is timely, but for the inference one draws that wars of national liberation are likely to continue.And where might the next such wars occur?Present-day Palestine gives a clue. But one is forced to think more about those states, many artificially constructed by victorious powers in the West, that describe the Middle East, and from which al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups have drawn recruits and funding - funding from the very states whose governments may be toppled in the next "war of national liberation."This is an attractive book, replete with numerous photographs, and Moran presents his research well. It will be a good volume for the beginning and intermediate student of military history.