croaker's review against another edition
3.0
The intro to this book is fantastic. Samuel B. Griffith does a great job of giving historical context to the text. His intro alone makes the book a must read.
Once you get into Mao's writing it starts to get repetitive. It feels like a lot of this book could be condensed down using his bullet points in the book and his brief explanations of each bullet point. The rest of it reads like fluff to flesh out his ideas in ways that tend to ramble.
Once you get into Mao's writing it starts to get repetitive. It feels like a lot of this book could be condensed down using his bullet points in the book and his brief explanations of each bullet point. The rest of it reads like fluff to flesh out his ideas in ways that tend to ramble.
rileysamsa's review against another edition
4.5
Learned a lot
I promise I won't put it into practice ;)
I promise I won't put it into practice ;)
fieldy's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating piece of history in which Mao explains the methods and the necessity of unconventional war tactics needed to drive out the Imperial Japanese Army during the the Second Sino-Japanese War. Read if you want to understand how a "weak country of vast size" was able to embolden a passive peasant population into a powerful mass resistance capable of fending off an army of far greater military-industrial capability. It was this fighting force developed through a combination of political propaganda and military training by party cadres throughout the invasion that gave the Communist Party of China the power to win the post-war struggle against the nationalists that followed, leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
eas2's review against another edition
4.0
I read this for a class, but I would honestly read it outside of class. Such an interesting read
huerca_armada's review against another edition
3.0
While those looking for a field manual on the titular subject will be sorely disappointed in the actual content (much of which is unique to the time in which it was written), there's still a lot to glean from the text. Make no mistake; Mao's writing is blunt and to the point, eschewing eloquence for an organizational program that is easily digestible for masses of readers. While of limited use to anyone who is not currently involved in a Chinese United Front struggling against Japanese occupation, On Guerrilla Warfare is a window into the mindset of Mao and others like him, both from a revolutionary and nationalist perspective. It traces organizational strategies that the Chinese Red Army successfully utilized from their infancy in the Jiangxi Soviet, through their most tenuous circumstances of the Long March to Yan'an, through the Sino-Japanese War and which you can see the outlines of their successes against the Guomindang/Nationalist forces in the Civil War.
A good supplement to other materials on Mao and China from this period overall, but should not be taken in isolation given that it is very much a particular text written for a particular time. Recommended for those with a more focused interest in Mao from this period; otherwise, most of what is written here is incorporated in broader texts that will give you the highlights in fewer words.
A good supplement to other materials on Mao and China from this period overall, but should not be taken in isolation given that it is very much a particular text written for a particular time. Recommended for those with a more focused interest in Mao from this period; otherwise, most of what is written here is incorporated in broader texts that will give you the highlights in fewer words.
isabeau's review against another edition
4.0
this text is short and available for free on marxists dot org
mynameisnemo's review against another edition
2.0
Kind of boring, a little too technically minded to be of much interest to the casual reader. It was an interesting look into the theories behind guerilla warfare and warfare in general at the time and also in that place in the world.
mburnamfink's review against another edition
4.0
Mao's book is a classic on guerrilla warfare, ably translated and contextualized by General Samuel B Griffith. This book mainly covers the theoretical and strategic aspects of guerrilla warfare, the need for complete political clarity at all levels, strict ethical codes and internal discipline for the men, and the proposed use of guerrillas against a qualitatively superior but numerically inferior force tasked with occupation and pacification. This book won't teach you about how to set an ambush and not starving to death in the woods, but it will cover the basic steps between an isolated an ineffective movement and the fall of a government.
More...