What do you think?
Rate this book
Guerrillas: Journeys in the Insurgent World
Prior to gaining international renown for his definitive biography of Che Guevara and first-hand reporting on the war in Iraq for the New Yorker, Jon Lee Anderson wrote Guerrillas, a pioneering account of five diverse insurgent movements around the world--the mujahedin of Afghanistan, the FMLN of El Salvador, the Karen of Burma, the Polisario of Western Sahara, and a group of young Palestinians fighting against Israel in the Gaza Strip. Making the most of unprecedented, direct access to his subjects, Anderson combines powerful, firsthand storytelling with balanced, penetrating analysis of each situation. A work of phenomenal range, analytical acuity, and human empathy, Guerrillas amply demonstrates why Jon Lee Anderson is one of our most important chroniclers of societies in crisis.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
15 people are currently reading
531 people want to read
About the author
Jon Lee Anderson
65 books287 followersJon Lee Anderson has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1998. He has covered numerous conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, reported frequently from Latin America and the Caribbean, and written profiles of Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, and Gabriel García Márquez. He is the author of several books, including The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Guerillas: Journeys in the Insurgent World, and The Fall of Baghdad.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 17, 2011
This is very clearly a book that was a product of a pre-9/11 world. Anderson looks at five different guerilla groups: Western Sahara's Polisario Front, the Karen of Burma, the mujahadeen of Afghanistan, the Palestinians in Gaza, and the FMLA of El Salvador.
Parts of this book were really insightful and useful, and opened my mind to ideas and expressions I hadn't properly considered. The rest was garbage. I found the descriptions of people as "exotic" troublesome, and I felt the portrayal of women, when it was actually done (because women seemingly disappeared in this book - he did not speak to many of them), were completely condescending. Calling a Palestinian woman "the fat mother" did nothing to endear himself to me.
I think the epilogue and followup were too short to condense all of what had happened in the past decade since he revisited those places. It was a good piece in parts, but the whole does not add up.
Parts of this book were really insightful and useful, and opened my mind to ideas and expressions I hadn't properly considered. The rest was garbage. I found the descriptions of people as "exotic" troublesome, and I felt the portrayal of women, when it was actually done (because women seemingly disappeared in this book - he did not speak to many of them), were completely condescending. Calling a Palestinian woman "the fat mother" did nothing to endear himself to me.
I think the epilogue and followup were too short to condense all of what had happened in the past decade since he revisited those places. It was a good piece in parts, but the whole does not add up.
April 30, 2024
Guerillas is a fascinating survey of five guerillas movements researched between 1988 and 1992: the mujahedin of Afghanistan, the FMLN of El Salvador, the Karen of Burma, the Polisario of Western Sahara, and a group of young Palestinians fighting against Israel in the Gaza Strip.
At it's best, it lets the fighters speak, lets the clarity of their need to remake the world come through. Guerilla life is hard life, one of deprivation and sacrifice, but the idea of a better world on the other side of the struggle is worth everything. These are people who will never give up.
Combat is random, somewhat distant. The FMLN has a liberated zone, occasionally bombed by government forces. The Polisario have an immense wall across a harsh desert. The mujahedin engage in close combat with government forces, while the Karen are pushed back by superior firepower. The Palestinians work amongst Israelis, but live separate lives, with violence spilling over from long tensions of occupation all around: mob violence met with massive firepower.
35 years on, the guerillas have met with mixed results. The FMLN became one of El Salvador's major parties, and even won control of government, thought the president was forced to flee on corruption charges and gang violence is worse than the civil war. The mujahedin conquered Afghanistan, lost Afghanistan, conquered it again; and the country has only suffered. The Polisario and the Karen bouth brokered ceasefires, and returned to the battlefield around 2020. And I think everybody knows how the Palestinian intifada has gone.
Other reviews have noted some of the flaws. Anderson almost entirely overlooks women, exoticizes his subjects, and takes public relations, particularly from the media savvy Polisario, on face value. Still, this is some fantastic non-fiction reporting.
At it's best, it lets the fighters speak, lets the clarity of their need to remake the world come through. Guerilla life is hard life, one of deprivation and sacrifice, but the idea of a better world on the other side of the struggle is worth everything. These are people who will never give up.
Combat is random, somewhat distant. The FMLN has a liberated zone, occasionally bombed by government forces. The Polisario have an immense wall across a harsh desert. The mujahedin engage in close combat with government forces, while the Karen are pushed back by superior firepower. The Palestinians work amongst Israelis, but live separate lives, with violence spilling over from long tensions of occupation all around: mob violence met with massive firepower.
35 years on, the guerillas have met with mixed results. The FMLN became one of El Salvador's major parties, and even won control of government, thought the president was forced to flee on corruption charges and gang violence is worse than the civil war. The mujahedin conquered Afghanistan, lost Afghanistan, conquered it again; and the country has only suffered. The Polisario and the Karen bouth brokered ceasefires, and returned to the battlefield around 2020. And I think everybody knows how the Palestinian intifada has gone.
Other reviews have noted some of the flaws. Anderson almost entirely overlooks women, exoticizes his subjects, and takes public relations, particularly from the media savvy Polisario, on face value. Still, this is some fantastic non-fiction reporting.
July 26, 2015
A quick, interesting survey of five revolutionary/guerrilla movements of the late 80s/early 90s: the FMLN of El Salvador, the shabab of Gaza's first intifada, the mujaheddin of Afghanistan (Afghan, not Arab), the Karen of Burma, and the Polisario of Western Sahara. The best aspect of of the book is extensive quotes and slices of everyday life from rank and file fighters. Anderson himself can sometimes be an intrusive narrative presence and he plays up a little too excitedly the 'exotic' nature of the people and places he covers. In general, however, he lets the guerrillas' stories stand without too much embellishment, and he is appropriately clear-eyed not only about the repressive circumstances that birth these movements but also the unwholesome, anti-democratic, and sometimes violent means guerrilla leadership use to maintain control of civilian populations and their own fighters. First published in 1992, it's also nice from a historical perspective. Worth a read.
February 21, 2015
Informative and educating, though sometimes it drags on with quite a bit of meaningless detail. I've come to expect this from the kind of journalism meant to be entertaining enough like regular television, that it might more likely keep the masses reading and watching.
The first few chapters are of the most important educating use to me. The rest gets bogged down by too much detail (both graphic and personal), paces like the speed of guerrilla conflict, and resolves itself to focus less on functions and uses (practical information on the goings-on), and more on quotes and physical details.
Beyond Ch. 3 it is definitely not as necessary to read for those interested in learning about guerrilla. These first few are hopeful and the core of a movement. And the rest, when readers skim the small stuff, is about the many challenges to that original ideal, and how individuals, groups, and movements as a whole, adapt to the changing environment.
The first few chapters are of the most important educating use to me. The rest gets bogged down by too much detail (both graphic and personal), paces like the speed of guerrilla conflict, and resolves itself to focus less on functions and uses (practical information on the goings-on), and more on quotes and physical details.
Beyond Ch. 3 it is definitely not as necessary to read for those interested in learning about guerrilla. These first few are hopeful and the core of a movement. And the rest, when readers skim the small stuff, is about the many challenges to that original ideal, and how individuals, groups, and movements as a whole, adapt to the changing environment.
August 5, 2024
Twenty years after I bought this (and thirty since it was originally published), I finally got around to reading it! I've always really liked Anderson's magazine reportage, but I'd never tried one of his books. This is a deep dive into five guerilla/insurgent movements from around the world during the late 1980s and early 1990s: the Palestinian intifada (itself a fractured movement, here Anderson mostly hangs with nascent Hamas cadres, the Afghan mujahideen (again, a very disparate group of warlords), the Karen ethnic minority of Myanmar, the Polisario Front seeking the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco, and El Salvador's FMLN.
The book follows these five movements across seven thematic chapters, starting with the origin story of each before turning to their day-to-day life in a kind of alternative state of being. Then comes the finances, how they fight for independence, how they maintain their own codes of rule, how concepts of community have evolved in each and finally, how religion and Marxist atheism influences the people. While there are some broad themes and connections, readers seeking any grand unified theory of insurgency aren't going to locate it here. The main takeaway is that oppressed people without viable options will channel their ability to endure into more direct action, and there are no shortage of ideologically-driven people on hand to channel that desperation.
The paperback version I read has an epilogue with an update on the five groups Anderson covered. In the intervening two decades, very little positive momentum has gathered for any of them. Readers seeking some insight into the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, or who live in areas of Karen refugee settlement in the US (St. Paul, Nebraska, San Diego, etc.), or have interest in contemporary El Salvador may want to skim the book and read those sections as interesting context. As a whole, it's a deeply-reported anthropology of oppressed peoples across the world.
The book follows these five movements across seven thematic chapters, starting with the origin story of each before turning to their day-to-day life in a kind of alternative state of being. Then comes the finances, how they fight for independence, how they maintain their own codes of rule, how concepts of community have evolved in each and finally, how religion and Marxist atheism influences the people. While there are some broad themes and connections, readers seeking any grand unified theory of insurgency aren't going to locate it here. The main takeaway is that oppressed people without viable options will channel their ability to endure into more direct action, and there are no shortage of ideologically-driven people on hand to channel that desperation.
The paperback version I read has an epilogue with an update on the five groups Anderson covered. In the intervening two decades, very little positive momentum has gathered for any of them. Readers seeking some insight into the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, or who live in areas of Karen refugee settlement in the US (St. Paul, Nebraska, San Diego, etc.), or have interest in contemporary El Salvador may want to skim the book and read those sections as interesting context. As a whole, it's a deeply-reported anthropology of oppressed peoples across the world.
November 1, 2022
This was interesting but like many people I was really irked by the language and some of the perspectives used by the author. It was a really fascinating exploration of guerrillas and the mythologies required to construct such conflicts and keep people fighting (by extension I think it has something to say about the role of mythology in human life in general).
However, there was a lot of really quite racist language, a hefty amount of misogyny, and just some very problematic and colonial attitudes towards people from the global south. Some passages seemed like they’d been written in 1892, not 1992. Additionally the treatment of the Mujahedin was interesting and a little troubling - he seemed to suggest they didn’t really have an ideology, which is obviously not true: fundamentalist Islamism is their ideology. That’s besides the point. Overall, I found the exploration of the FMLN, the KNU and especially the Polisario Front most interesting, as all three are quite obscure (I’d only actually heard the Polisario referred to by that name before, and knew nothing about them). Really great.
The colours this book stimulated in my head felt like a mix of mustard yellow and green.
However, there was a lot of really quite racist language, a hefty amount of misogyny, and just some very problematic and colonial attitudes towards people from the global south. Some passages seemed like they’d been written in 1892, not 1992. Additionally the treatment of the Mujahedin was interesting and a little troubling - he seemed to suggest they didn’t really have an ideology, which is obviously not true: fundamentalist Islamism is their ideology. That’s besides the point. Overall, I found the exploration of the FMLN, the KNU and especially the Polisario Front most interesting, as all three are quite obscure (I’d only actually heard the Polisario referred to by that name before, and knew nothing about them). Really great.
The colours this book stimulated in my head felt like a mix of mustard yellow and green.
April 8, 2025
got one chapter in. i found the authors view on palestine questionable. he doesnt focus the discussion of palestinian resistance groups around the colonial oppression forced upon these ppls, leaving descriptions of martydom and generational suffering in a weird and ideologically limited space of being celebrated by palestinians bc of sacrifice, when this is a result of illegal israeli enforcement. ideas of martyrdom and the holding of such strong religious beliefs is, in part, a result of this struggle and the hope for the past, present, and future to meet as one in a free palestine. overall it just left me with bad feeling bc the colonial context is so vital, especially when talking about guerrilla groups internationally and from different cultural beginnings. also, i had nightmares last night after reading it before bed soo bye.
December 28, 2018
It is crazy to read this book in 2018, a vital anthropological look at the universal roots of violent revolutionary rebellions and the individuals behind these movements.
June 14, 2021
Interesting account of five guerilla movements around the world and an examination of their simulaties. Well written and thoughtful.
May 5, 2009
My opinion of this book, after only 20 pages, was that it was horrible. Having completed it, that initial opinion is wholly confirmed.
The author is imperialistic and definitely has a colonial outlook, especially as it regards Western Sahara. He fails to ever look at himself or his own Western culture, never turning his microscope onto his own preconceptions, sympathies and nationalism. He never questions how symbols are used by the guerillas and their followers, nor does he ever look outside these communities in order to see how they fit in, navigate and struggle against the larger context.
He describes the people who are guerillas as almost without the ability to think for themselves. If they are supporters, they are portrayed as either megalomaniacal leaders or manipulated puppets. He tries to correctly point out some techniques that are ideological indoctrination, but his overall approach is to diminish or eliminate the humanity and agency of the population.
Further, he writes fluid and beautiful prose to describe the landscape, how the sand dunes meet the sky, the sun, etc. But when describing people, especially the common bystander, he dredges up racist and condescending language. I feel like he's describing his day at the zoo, only the exhibits are filled with human beings and the author can't see that, only a sensationalized story to tell his friends the next day at the water cooler.
He guesses at people's opinions, rather than asking them what they're thinking. He rarely uses quotes from his informants. Granted, the author does not bill this as an ethnographic piece. But he, and his reviewers, call it reporting. That's true, only in the vein of scandal sheets and racist propaganda posters. He does a disservice to those he writes about and to all reporters.
Words like condescension, arrogance, and colonialism ring through my head as I read this book. A famed writer with the New Yorker, I'd expect fine writing, deep research, wit and, indeed, a little arrogance. Sadly, all I found was the last, and in much greater quantity than I ever expected. Jon Lee Anderson needs to take a refresher course in journalism and he should consider a few cultural anthropology courses to boot.
The author is imperialistic and definitely has a colonial outlook, especially as it regards Western Sahara. He fails to ever look at himself or his own Western culture, never turning his microscope onto his own preconceptions, sympathies and nationalism. He never questions how symbols are used by the guerillas and their followers, nor does he ever look outside these communities in order to see how they fit in, navigate and struggle against the larger context.
He describes the people who are guerillas as almost without the ability to think for themselves. If they are supporters, they are portrayed as either megalomaniacal leaders or manipulated puppets. He tries to correctly point out some techniques that are ideological indoctrination, but his overall approach is to diminish or eliminate the humanity and agency of the population.
Further, he writes fluid and beautiful prose to describe the landscape, how the sand dunes meet the sky, the sun, etc. But when describing people, especially the common bystander, he dredges up racist and condescending language. I feel like he's describing his day at the zoo, only the exhibits are filled with human beings and the author can't see that, only a sensationalized story to tell his friends the next day at the water cooler.
He guesses at people's opinions, rather than asking them what they're thinking. He rarely uses quotes from his informants. Granted, the author does not bill this as an ethnographic piece. But he, and his reviewers, call it reporting. That's true, only in the vein of scandal sheets and racist propaganda posters. He does a disservice to those he writes about and to all reporters.
Words like condescension, arrogance, and colonialism ring through my head as I read this book. A famed writer with the New Yorker, I'd expect fine writing, deep research, wit and, indeed, a little arrogance. Sadly, all I found was the last, and in much greater quantity than I ever expected. Jon Lee Anderson needs to take a refresher course in journalism and he should consider a few cultural anthropology courses to boot.
Read
October 2, 2013Good book, Focus on three different Guerrilla movements the Polisaro in Morocco, indigenous tribesmen in Burma and rebels in central America. More about their lives aspirations and the systems they have built and maintain to reject their oppressors.
February 15, 2008
chilling, lucid, true.
December 8, 2009
A really interesting in-field report on some groups most people wouldn't be able to communicate with! A rare and objective psychological portrait, if at times risking slight romanticization.
April 30, 2021
Worth a read
July 20, 2014
This book gives the accounts of many guerrilla forces spanning the globe, very interesting!
Read
October 14, 2017interesting insight of various unsuccesful guerilla groups.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews