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Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World, 1945-1965

Michael Burleigh

3.98 · Rating details · 334 ratings · 48 reviews

A sweeping history of the Cold War’s many "hot” wars born in the last gasps of empire

The Cold War reigns in popular imagination as a period of tension between the two post-World War II superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, without direct conflict. Drawing from new archival research, prize-winning historian Michael Burleigh gives new meaning to the seminal ...more

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Hardcover, First Edition (U.S.), 587 pages

Published September 12th 2013 by Viking/Penguin Group (USA) Inc. (first published April 2013)

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Sep 26, 2015 Kym Robinson rated it really liked it

Shelves: modern-military

One of the talents that Michael Burleigh possesses is an ability to carry his pen with a combination of knowledge and wit. It provides the reader with an informative narrative that keeps you yearning for more despite an already generous amount of information considering the vastness of the subject and the limitations of the books modest size.

I found that this book was a splendid overview showing the origins of blowback and reality that exists across the globe today so many decades on. At times B One of the talents that Michael Burleigh possesses is an ability to carry his pen with a combination of knowledge and wit. It provides the reader with an informative narrative that keeps you yearning for more despite an already generous amount of information considering the vastness of the subject and the limitations of the books modest size.

I found that this book was a splendid overview showing the origins of blowback and reality that exists across the globe today so many decades on. At times Burleigh manages to allow his disregard for certain historical players to show as his words drip with a certain amount of serpicness. While this can be condemned by many as far as historical matters go it is for the most part refreshing considering the very real consequences and tragedy that befalls the victims of such 'great men' of history.

At times Burleigh interjects a little too much of the personal defects of historical figures which does help to colour these people, some times it is however unrelated to the matter at being discussed. In a wider biographical context this is certainly welcome but when one has such a wide period of subject to cover, at times these highlights of flawed human character is a tad unwarranted. That being said it is in no way a defence of such people as most, if not all are deplorable and should not be above reproach, context however is the point on hand.

For the most part despite Burleighs wit and at times poisonous pen this is an excellent and most informative read. It certainly is a good platform for one to seek more on the various regions and conflicts discussed while also providing the reader with a solid one stop read of a period in history that is often over looked despite its wider implications.

I would recommend this book for the casual historian to those who have a deeper knowledge base. Burleigh does not talk down at the reader nor does he talk over their head instead he invites you to listen, respecting your grasp of events and language in such a way that one wishes to know more.

90% ...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Jerome rated it liked it

In this sly and readable book, Burleigh examines the strategic and political context of the years 1945-1965, years notable for wars big and small, most of which can be traced to the end of the second world war. He provides anecdotal portraits of all the major players involved in this turbulent era, and is rather critical of all of them (Eisenhower comes off the lightest). Despite this, however, the book is rather balanced, and both Western and insurgent leaders receive a fair share of criticism. In this sly and readable book, Burleigh examines the strategic and political context of the years 1945-1965, years notable for wars big and small, most of which can be traced to the end of the second world war. He provides anecdotal portraits of all the major players involved in this turbulent era, and is rather critical of all of them (Eisenhower comes off the lightest). Despite this, however, the book is rather balanced, and both Western and insurgent leaders receive a fair share of criticism. The book is not as in-depth as it could be (he never really analyzes the various insurgencies, for example), but perhaps this has to do with the breadth of the material Burleigh attempts to cover. A glance at Burleigh's bibliography reveals that he draws almost entirely on secondary sources; mostly English-language books and newspapers, many of them quite dated. Nor does he really try to explain what he means by “the making of the modern world,” as he puts it in the title; more than likely this was just a publisher’s ploy. And Burleigh admits that the conflicts he chooses to cover are those that interest him the most; as a result, we don’t really see any of the de-colonization projects that went relatively smoothly.

Burleigh vividly describes the West’s retreat from their colonial empires following 1945, and how they too often failed to realize how much the war with Japan had altered the situation. The British tended to approach the situation more pragmatically than the French, but its strategic position was irreparably damaged following the Suez fiasco in 1956. In Kenya, the British handed government over to an ill-prepared African majority and triggered the infamous Mau Mau uprising. The US tended to view the Europeans’ policy of empire with a self-righteous distaste, then switched to a more pragmatic approach themselves as the Cold War began, and saw the Soviets behind every international crisis that popped up (hence the Domino Theory, which Burleigh, like many historians before him is critical of). Burleigh describes all of this mostly in terms of statesmanship---what leader made what decision, how did it affect events, etc. He provides little coverage of social or economic factors.

The book is readable for the most part, although Burleigh seems to have a thing for for fragmented sentences. And his writing is both amusing and distracting: he calls Lord Salisbury “stupid” and introduces Kennedy under the heading “All Mouth and No Trousers.” America’s ambassador to China is called a “drunken idiot.” He writes that “the US was disparaged as big clumsy people,” John Foster Dulles is called a “tough, complex, and cunning man,” Loy Henderson is “our old friend.” In one instance he writes that “Few regimes in history---other than the one in in North Korea---have so completely mobilized hysterical levels of enthusiasm or hatred, as well as enthusiastic hate too.” For some reason he calls John Quincy Adams America’s second president and refers to the national security advisor as “National Security Assistant.” Burleigh makes references to “jet freighters,” refers to “the Netherlands East Indies” rather than the Dutch East Indies, writes that “Ho survived [Stalin’s wrath] because Stalin did not regard Indochina as a serious place,” and in another instance writes that “truly great powers do national security strategy rather than simply react in ill-thought-out spasms.” Like many older historians, he calls the Inchon landings “brilliant,” although it seems that the landing was not as risky as is sometimes portrayed since the North Korean air force at that time had been significantly damaged and US aircraft carriers ensured sufficient air cover.

On a whole, Burleigh’s book is not very cohesive and often he has little new to add (Cuba and Vietnam, for example). He also attempts to link this period to the modern era of Middle Eastern terrorism and insurgency, but this part has a tenuous feel to it (he compares Syngman Rhee with Ahmed Chalabi rather dubiously). Burleigh’s story, while interesting, is not very cohesive. ...more

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Dec 31, 2013 James Murphy rated it it was amazing

I was impressed by Burleigh's history. The small wars he writes about--Korea, the Arab-Israeli Wars, the Malaya and Mau Mau Emergencies, the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines, French Indochina, Hungary, Suez, India'a wars with Pakistan and China, Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam--are all, with a couple of exceptions, familiar. But Burleigh writes about them so engagingly they have new lives. He writes so anecdotally and with such sharp, analytic insight that he makes it fun to revisit the individual hi ...more

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May 21, 2015 Andrew rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics-and-political-theory, asian-history, north-american-history, middle-eastern-islamic-history, military-history-warfare, african-history

Michael Burleigh's "Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the World, 1945-1965," is a fascinating history on some of the post-WWII era conflicts that engulfed the planet. Burleigh focuses on conflicts in Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Algeria, Kenya, DRC, Palestine and Cuba as well as briefs on Ghana and Guinea, China and the Japanese forces in WWII. As you can see, this is book is epic in scale, and covers these conflicts in great political detail. The backgroun Michael Burleigh's "Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the World, 1945-1965," is a fascinating history on some of the post-WWII era conflicts that engulfed the planet. Burleigh focuses on conflicts in Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Algeria, Kenya, DRC, Palestine and Cuba as well as briefs on Ghana and Guinea, China and the Japanese forces in WWII. As you can see, this is book is epic in scale, and covers these conflicts in great political detail. The background for each conflict and the cast of characters are laid bare with as much detail as can be mustered, and Burleigh should be commended for this wonderful history.

As one may wonder with such a book, Burleigh tries his best to be as neutral as possible, covering each conflict from the viewpoint of the protagonists, whether they are Nationalists, French, British, American, Soviet or Chinese or whathaveyou. The most fascinating part of this book is the revolving interests that may see the Soviets and the Americans agreeing on something the British have opposed (ex. Palestine), or dividing opinions between Communist China and Russia. The cast of characters that centre on many of these conflicts, including such figures as Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur, Edward Landsdale and Ho Chi Minh are wonderful to read about, as they involve themselves in first one conflict, and then another. It is almost frightening to realize how much of the modern world was shaped by the ideas of the politicians and generals present within this book.

All things considered, this book is a fascinating read on Cold War era politics and conflicts, and touches on a number of primary and secondary resources throughout. This is not necessarily an easy read, and many may be shocked by the callousness and sociopathy that many of the often revered characters in this chronicle operate. Even so, this is an important read to understand much of the pasts conflicts, and a good resource for gaining insight on characters and events that warrant further study.Highly Recommended. ...more

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Oct 04, 2018 モーリー rated it did not like it

Shelves: cold-war, colonialism, history, war, comparative, activism

The number of factual errors in the first 20 pages alone is astounding. The author gets wrong the name of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, two of three Kim leaders of North Korea, and the fact that Manchuria was a Japanese puppet state, not directly “conquered.” If he gets that much wrong about things I have a passing knowledge of, what about the other sections? I just can’t trust any of the information here.

This is not even to go into the author’s self-professed admiration of wester ...more

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Jul 28, 2020 Justin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is an excellent book, mainly by virtue of the subject matter and Burleigh’s marshalling of it into a coherent narrative. I learned so much I didn’t know, particularly about the breakup of the empires, and often felt that this was a book that everyone should read, as this recent history is so relevant for the current world but is relatively little known. The book covers a dizzying array of conflicts around the world, and in so doing also covers the first half of the Cold War and the fall of This is an excellent book, mainly by virtue of the subject matter and Burleigh’s marshalling of it into a coherent narrative. I learned so much I didn’t know, particularly about the breakup of the empires, and often felt that this was a book that everyone should read, as this recent history is so relevant for the current world but is relatively little known. The book covers a dizzying array of conflicts around the world, and in so doing also covers the first half of the Cold War and the fall of the European empires.

The main “protagonists” around whom the narrative is centred are the USA, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China - essentially the “victors” of the Second World War. There is an overview of the wartime and postwar condition of each of these countries. The discussion of Britain was particularly interesting: 1950s Britain was grim and grey, with the economy suffering badly, industries failing to modernise, trade unions crippling progress, people generally disgruntled, and suffered under delusions of grandeur, particularly with mythologising about the war (when in fact by the end of the war Britain had become an increasingly marginal player when compared alongside the USA and Soviet Union - for instance, only 10 percent of the Allied soldiers invading Germany in 1945 were British). It turned out that China was Roosevelt’s “favourite” ally.

A whole range of conflicts were covered in approximately chronological order, starting with the Japanese occupation of southeast Asia and how this set in train the fall of the European empires in Asia. The war in China is covered in some detail (fascinating - and I hadn’t appreciated the extent of US involvement), moving on into the Chinese civil war. The overthrow of the Dutch regime in Indonesia is covered. There is a chapter on the Korean War (learned so much), where the egomaniacal MacArthur comes across particularly badly. There is a section on how Britain’s Palestine mandate came to an end, including probably the best five pages or so I’ve seen on the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflicts. I hadn’t realised that the Jewish terrorists had taken their campaign to mainland Britain. Then there is an interesting section on meddling in Iran by Britain and the US, including the Mossadegh coup. Indian independence is also covered, highlighting what a brutal and bloody mess it was.

There are whole chapters on Malaya, the Philippines and Indochina. I hadn’t realised that Britain had adopted wartime Japanese counterinsurgency tactics in Malaya, and so when modern counterinsurgents talk about the British in Malaya, the pioneering tactics of the Japanese remain uncredited. Incidentally, I also hadn’t realised just how much the Allies relied on surrendered Japanese forces to maintain order in the postwar environment, from Korea to Indonesia (the Japanese army was highly regarded for its competence, discipline and reliability). Malaya also presented the separate stories of General Templer - the genuinely impressive British commander who among other things tried to stamp out institutional racism - and the daring Special Branch detective Irene Lee, who gets three pages covering her exploits.

I had no idea there had been a postwar insurgency in the Philippines by the Huks, where a US Air Force Colonel called Edward Lansdale led a successful US campaign to defeat it. Meanwhile, I was particularly struck by the foolishness and tragedy of Dien Bien Phu, with non-parachute-trained French soldiers volunteering to jump in and die with their besieged comrades, while North African prostitutes from the official French brothel improvised as nurses until the end of the battle. I hadn’t realised General Giap had no prior military experience and was essentially self-taught from books - very capable from such unusual training.

Hungary and the Suez debacle are covered, again highlighting British delusions of grandeur and overblown faith in the special relationship (particularly with Eisenhower), and interestingly also how both the French and Israelis viewed the British as unreliable at best and duplicitous at worst - hence they wanted Britain to make the first move to ensure they were committed.

There is a chapter on the brutal and complex war in Algeria, which included a civil war between the Algerian arabs, an insurgency against the French colonists, and essentially a civil war among the French, with French colonists waging an insurgency against the French government they felt betrayed by. I hadn’t realised how close France was to civil war when the republic collapsed in 1958, and that there was an attempted military coup against the French government in 1961; it failed in parts thanks to the lack of enthusiasm from French conscripts, who were of a very different mindset to the aggressive professional generals and their elite units.

The brutality continues in Kenya. It turned out that Britain delayed ratifying the Geneva Convention, signed in 1949, until 1957, so that it didn’t have to abide by it in Kenya, where terrible atrocities were committed.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the focus of a chapter on other parts of Africa, which also includes Rhodesia. I hadn’t realised how invested white mercenaries were in maintaining white rule.

There are a couple of chapters on Cuba and some of Latin America (where the US behaved appallingly during the 20the century, deposing governments and assassinating leaders, sometimes just to balance out other assassinations), covering the revolution and then the Cuban missile crisis. I hadn’t realised that the revolution was a non-communist white middle class one, which impacted black Cubans particularly badly. It was also stark how rapacious US business and organised crime was in Cuba (there is a great 1930s quote from a US Marine Major General called Smedley Butler who basically said he spent 33 years being a thug for US business), and both were heavily impacted by the revolution, and hence the mafia was more than happy to work with the CIA in Cuba, for instance with assassination attempts against Castro. JFK comes out particularly badly - I hadn’t realised what a dodgy rich playboy he was.

The final chapter covers the US involvement in Vietnam from about 1960 until 1965. That story is better known, in my view, but was still interesting to read about. It was so obvious that the US was backing the wrong dictator, but I was also struck by how delusional the US military leadership was. They only ever briefed positive things, and so everything was a raging success, in complete contrast to State Department and CIA assessments. It really highlights how dangerous a culture of briefing up only positive news is.

I thought this was a superb read - utterly fascinating. The real strength was how Burleigh managed to turn so many different stories into a coherent whole. It is also handy for the relatively short (eg no more than a chapter) but sufficiently in-depth summaries it gives of a whole host of conflicts I feel I should know about. My only criticisms are his regular reference to politics at the time of writing in 2013, which feel like they are dating quickly (or I’ve forgotten the context and so don’t really get the references), and some of the casual language when expressing his personal opinions, which somewhat undermines the scholarliness of the rest of the book; the last example of this that I noted in the book was talking about when Fidel Castro “finally shuffles off this mortal coil”. He didn’t need to phrase it this way and it undermines the rest of his excellent writing. ...more

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Jan 13, 2014 Benjamin Eskola rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: nobody

Shelves: owned-ebooks, non-fiction

In short: this is a dreadful book.

There is, of course, no such thing as an unbiased work of history, and the most biased authors are generally those who think they’re unbiased but are instead just blind to their own preconceptions. Burleigh, despite (or because of) his claim to have ‘little ideological and even less nostalgic investment in the events described’, displays a deep-seated antipathy for anyone who could remotely be described as left-wing. While it’s true that he’s not outright defend In short: this is a dreadful book.

There is, of course, no such thing as an unbiased work of history, and the most biased authors are generally those who think they’re unbiased but are instead just blind to their own preconceptions. Burleigh, despite (or because of) his claim to have ‘little ideological and even less nostalgic investment in the events described’, displays a deep-seated antipathy for anyone who could remotely be described as left-wing. While it’s true that he’s not outright defending imperialism, those who opposed imperialism are, in his portrayal, either pathetic figures worthy of nothing but contempt, or comic-book villains worthy of both contempt and demonization.

His usual method, it seems, is to describe atrocities committed by both sides in the hope that this constitutes balance. It does not: those perpetrated by imperialists, and by the right in general, are described dispassionately, while those committed by the left are always presented in more emotive terms. Thus he reports calmly that thousands of South Korean police, assisted by US forces, rounded up and murdered suspected Communists in Pyongyang; but the reverse is committed by the North Korean ‘secret police’ (a term never used of equivalent bodies in democracies). Stalin becomes, inexplicably, ‘Generalissimo Stalin’, although his military rank was never (so far as I’m aware) more than honorary (in the same way as Queen Elizabeth is commander-in-chief of the British armed forces); presumably it’s mere oversight that stops him according Eisenhower (an actual general) the same title. He talks with disdain of the “mindless nationalism” that is supposedly unique to China and North Korea, a claim so stupid it’s hardly worth pointing out the counterexamples. Mere paragraphs after reporting that women suspected of being nationalist supporters in Algeria were routinely raped by interrogators, he complains that “the liberal press ignored nationalist barbarity”; French nationalists killed 14,000 people in a single year, 80% of whom were Muslim, but it’s the Algerian independence movement whom he describes as having ‘death squads’.

Coinciding with these double standards is a constant assumption of bad faith on the part of any and every left-wing movement. He disparages the Americans for their supposed monolithic view of Communism; yet he suffers from the same weakness, continually contrasting “nationalists” with genuine desire for independence with “communists” who always have some ulterior motive. Reporting on the Viet Minh’s literacy campaign, for example, he suggests that the reason behind it is that “one needed to read to understand their propaganda.” Indeed, on the occasions when it does become impossible to accuse a left-wing revolution of being incited by Moscow (or perhaps Beijing), Burleigh is shocked that they are able to think for themselves. This cognitive dissonance extends to being able to cite the CIA’s finding that 80% of South Vietnamese citizens would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, that the Viet Cong won support “through a genuine understanding of their concerns and by simple but effective measures”, and yet still consider them brutal terrorists and support for them as fundamentally inexplicable. Americans in the Philippines apparently simultaneously wanted to prevent electoral fraud and ‘ensure a favourable outcome’ (using $500,000 of CIA funds). In Iran, Mossadeq is presented as a comic figure (with vaguely racist undertones), but more concerningly, one who brought about his own demise by failing to abandon the policies that upset British and American oil interests (MI6 and CIA interference is, presumably, a force of nature in these circumstances, which can’t be avoided except by doing what they want). In Malaya, Burleigh consistently refers to the independence movement by the British propaganda term CTs (“communist terrorists”), even in sections predating the introduction of this term in practice (i.e., both biased and anachronistic).

It was clear within a few chapters that I wasn’t going to agree with the author’s politics, but it soon became impossible to even trust it as a factual description of events, since he’s incapable of separating fact from opinion; for example, when discussing the post-war British economy, it’s stated without question that full employment was ‘suffocating’ and unhealthy, as if this were no more controversial a claim than stating that the earth is round and that gravity makes things fall downwards. On the contrary: it’s nothing if not a political claim, and Burleigh is either ignorant or intentionally misleading.

As the book progresses he makes even less effort to hide his politics: British ‘Special Branch’ police are ‘heroes’, both in Malaya and in Northern Ireland (a conflict which is otherwise outside of the scope of this book); he classifies French colonists in Algeria as being unfairly demonized by the black-and-white thinking of the left, along with (among others) the apartheid regime in South Africa. By this point he’s ceased to pretend to be apolitical: all his political complaints are specifically directed at straw leftists (yet, without a trace of irony, dismisses as ‘ahistorical advocacy’ works that might suggest that imperialism was bad, or that imperialists can be blamed for it).

I only read as far as I did out of sheer annoyance, and even that got boring towards the end. I skimmed the last few chapters; Castro, like Mao, is presented as a comic-book villain who apparently had no motivation except for a desire for power; in Mao’s case, this interpretation is based on the flimsiest of sources, whereas by the time the book reached Castro I’d long lost faith that the book could be trusted.

Don’t bother reading this book. Try Odd Arne Westad instead, who can at least make criticisms of the USSR grounded in something like reality.

Addendum: I got so caught up in addressing the content of the book that I completely overlooked the failings of form. Burleigh is attempting to address a period of 20 years, over most of the world, involving multiple empires each fighting multiple overlapping colonial wars. As he rightly points out, this presents a problem in terms of structuring the book in order to be readable. Unfortunately, I don’t think his solution succeeds. He attempts to address each conflict in more-or-less individual chapters, and then orders the chapters roughly chronologically; however, this doesn’t avoid the significant overlap between chapters, such that we encounter individual participants late in their career towards the end of one chapter, and then a few chapters later they’re introduced at an earlier stage of their career. He also tries to make some sort of point in the introduction about a geographic logic to the structure; I don’t see it. This is, perhaps, not really Burleigh’s fault, but a natural result of the source material. A stricter chronological ordering would have meant confusing leaps back and forth between multiple theatres; a stronger geographical focus would have meant even greater confusion of the chronology. Either way, the result is a confusing structure. ...more

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Apr 04, 2015 John rated it liked it

"Small Wars, Faraway Places" is a highly readable and informative book with an importance that is undercut at most every turn by the author's condescending attitude.

The idea of writing an engaging book about the military conflicts that erupted around the world during a span of approximately 20 years is a timely one for several reasons. First, the fallout from some of these conflicts still troubles the world (e.g., the fraught relationship with Iran, the lack of resolution to the Korean War, the "Small Wars, Faraway Places" is a highly readable and informative book with an importance that is undercut at most every turn by the author's condescending attitude.

The idea of writing an engaging book about the military conflicts that erupted around the world during a span of approximately 20 years is a timely one for several reasons. First, the fallout from some of these conflicts still troubles the world (e.g., the fraught relationship with Iran, the lack of resolution to the Korean War, the unresolved tensions with Cuba, and the seemingly never-ending problems in the Middle East). Second, the history of these conflicts may hold lessons, however modest, for today's world. Third, the conflicts profiled by Michael Burleigh are close enough to the present to be of interest but far enough in the past to require explanation and interpretation for the many people too young to have any real memories of them. Finally, the fact that these conflicts were driven by the intersection of the end of the historical era of European colonialism and the rise of global ideological conflict embodied by the Cold War may offer parallels for what seems to be a contemporary era of geopolitical transition combined with ideological strife.

Burleigh is an excellent writer who clearly knows his material, and consequently, his profiles of individual conflicts are engaging, compelling, and illuminating. For example, his discussion of the Malayan Insurgency is clear and explains the nature of the counterinsurgency model implemented by the British and why it may be of limited applicability to modern conflicts. Many of these individual profiles are gripping, and as a result, it often is hard to put the book down.

What mars the book, however, is the author's tendency to inject seemingly unfounded personal biases and highly subjective assessments of personal character into the profiles. For instance, Burleigh possesses a seemingly visceral hatred of John F. Kennedy, resulting in a discussion of the Cuban Missile Crisis periodically interrupted by swipes at Kennedy's sexual proclivities and supposed perversions. That may be the case, but Burleigh just asserts this and writes with an anger that would lead a reader to think he knew Kennedy well or was part of the administration. Yet Burleigh was roughly five years old--not to mention living in the UK--when Kennedy was elected.

Perhaps the best that can be said about Burleigh is that he is an equitable in the disdain in which he holds key figures from the conflicts about which he writes. To paraphrase (and probably misquote) the old Archie Bunker television show, "I'm not a bigot. I hate everybody equally."

For readers looking for an accessible one volume account of the global conflicts that played out immediately after the end of the Second World War, "Small Wars, Faraway Places" is an informative book worth reading.Had the author managed to keep his biases and condescension at bay, it would have been an excellent book rather than an ultimately interesting but unsatisfying one. ...more

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Sep 09, 2013 The American Conservative added it · review of another edition

"Small wars that roiled distant places over the 20 years after 1945 highlight the difficulty of maintaining political order amid deeper cultural and social upheavals. Understanding complex situations, particularly when they involved different cultures, presented difficulties Western leaders rarely overcame. Intervention all too often entailed a costly struggle or made outside powers the means to self-interested ends sought by local groups.

Burleigh’s analysis underlines the limits of what outsid ...more

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Dec 30, 2013 Alan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

Excellent, engaging history of the Post-WW2 world that emerged from the far-flung European empires as they collapsed. Burleigh deftly flits from place to place, drawing comparisons and contrasts between the various insurgencies and nationalist movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Alongside this, he examines the growing involvement of the US in "liberal imperialism" (the US of course, did not see its actions that way). While not engaging in what he terms "advocacy history", Burleigh does ...more

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Dec 31, 2013 Steve rated it it was amazing

After reading this book, I have a much clearer understanding of all the foreign news stories I read/heard/watched while growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. And, thanks to the author's razor-sharp skewers of most of the politicians, statements, revolutionaries and crooks who were involved in the events, I have a much better sense of why they happened. A wonderfully well-written book which should be read by everyone. ...more

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Mar 29, 2020 Dom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is almost an alternative modern history of Britain, with tales of operations by UK forces that most people will never have heard of. Michael Burleigh writes in a very engaging way, providing lots of information but without taking away from the story telling.

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Aug 06, 2017 Khaled rated it liked it · review of another edition

Reading this book was a challenge for me. I end up focusing on Middle East pieces . This book is rich with details and make you go back to past and live the experience.

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Jul 09, 2020 Andras Szalai rated it it was ok · review of another edition

DNF at 30%. Colonial apologism at is purest.
But I guess if you want a right-wing reading of the small wars of the Cold War...

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Nov 19, 2020 Caryatid rated it really liked it

A fascinating read about world events during the first twenty years of my life plus forays into the future. Now I must read more of this authors books.

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Sep 22, 2013 Andrew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

In retrospect it seems inevitable that the European powers would lose their grip on their colonial possessions after the conclusion of the Second World War. But at the time there were many in Europe who saw it as far from a natural process and often as undesirable. "Small Wars, Far Away Places" tells the extraordinary story of the period from 1945 to 1965 when the European empires fell. In chapters loosely based around territories (Korea, Malaya, Suez, Kenya, Cuba, Vietnam among others), he show ...more

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Sep 20, 2013 Rick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Talk about a dense book. But how else can you summarize the 20 years following WWII? I learned a lot about the ugly end of European colonialism and the not-so-pretty American attempts to expand its influence in the aftermath of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War. The major theme among Britain, France, and USA is that they usually didn't understand the people they were trying to conquer; fissures among the occupied populations were often mischaracterized, or missed altogether. The capabilitie ...more

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Oct 07, 2013 Niffer rated it really liked it

Shelves: first-reads, misc-non-fiction, historical, war

I received this book through a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

I have fairly eclectic interests and entered this giveaway because this book sonded interesting. It was, but it was also a struggle to read. This really is intended for acadenics or people with a strong interest in the topic. There were a lot of names dropped and references to historical events that were not expanded upon because it was obviously assumed the reader had some prior knowledge of the people/events. While many of the names ...more

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Nov 05, 2015 Tripp rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I really like Michael Burleigh. He writes about violence and political violence in particular. This book covers the start of the Cold War and no one is covered in glory. Most are covered in cruelty, failure, misguided efforts and sorrow. We all now about the horrors of Vietnam, but how about the terrors of Partition, the Malayan Emergency, Algeria, Korea, Iran, Guatemala and others?

Too many of these books focus on the terrible moral cost the US incurred in its attempt to beat the Soviets. This ...more

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Mar 19, 2014 Raza Syed rated it really liked it

This book tackles the post WW 2 conflicts till end of The Vietnam War. This is a well researched and well organized book. That time period in the world's history was a very dynamic era.
The Axis had been defeated, the old imperial empires (French, British, Dutch) were unravelling, the New Bipolar world was a reality, Cold War had just began. If all this wasn't enough, almost all the colonies were rising up against their imperial masters.
I had a general understanding of most of these events but th ...more

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Feb 05, 2015 Steve rated it really liked it

British historian Michael Burleigh surveys the several "small" wars the U.S. and European colonial powers fought from the end of World War Two to Vietnam. These includes both the well-known (Israel, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam) and the more obscure, at least to Americans, such as Malaysia, Philippines, Kenya and Congo. Throughout all of these examples, the general failure and casual brutality of a imperialist approach to international relations is made evident. Of course, in this time period, many o ...more

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Mar 04, 2014 Michael Samerdyke rated it it was amazing

This is a very readable book that does a fine job of showing how post-World War II decolonization and the Cold War reinforced each other. Burleigh takes us from 1945 to 1965 and shows us the many conflicts of the era, including several most Americans are not familiar with (such as the Algerian war for independence and the Huk uprising in the Philippines.)

Burleigh writes in a very clear style and often made me think of A. J. P. Taylor in the level of his writing. Burleigh is not shy about express ...more

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Jul 06, 2014 Linnaea rated it it was amazing

Shelves: action, asia, cool-non-fiction, history, call-to-arms, africa, could-not-put-down

wow. one of the best and most interesting books I have ever read.

It is written from a British view, so there were some new views for me to read about America and her reactions to the chaos of the era. The book covers the wars that took place from 1945 (the end of WWII) and 1965 (Vietnam). There was a lot of detail about the characters involved and how each fight played out in the growing narrative of The Cold War and the "battle against communism"

There was a lot of information in these pages, ye ...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Stuart Kinross rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A very entertaining and informative account of the West's withdrawal from Empire in the aftermath of the Second World War that is placed in the wider context of the Cold War. Burleigh therefore not only covers the conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, but also analyses the foreign policies of both superpowers during the early decades of the Cold War. Small Wars is a very well written account that combines expert analysis with some shrewd observations of the personalities who shaped the ...more

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Dec 10, 2014 Blaine Morrow rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorite-books-of-2013, history-biography

Unique overview of the many small wars and conflicts that followed WWII in small, faraway places; Malay, Korea, India and Pakistan, Congo, Kenya, Guatemala, Cuba, and many others, ending with the Vietnamese conflict. The author provides history mixed with character studies and political commentary, making this an interesting read and one that has no parallel in histories of the time period (1945-1965). I was disappointed in the book's conclusion, which seemed abrupt and failed to provide the kin ...more

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Aug 01, 2015 Michael Spring rated it it was amazing

If you like your historians quietly judicious, smiling in the background from behind a large bookcase, then perhaps Michael Burleigh isn't for you. If, on the other hand, you like them ballsy, leading with the chin on virtually every page and getting away with it because of incredible dexterity, then you really have to read this book. Tells you everything you need to know about the post-war world from the revolution in China to Vietnam, with Malaya, Kenya, and a whole lot of other stuff thrown i ...more

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Feb 18, 2016 Amry Saja rated it liked it · review of another edition

Got to honestly said Michael did have different angle of writing about history.
quite tough read for me but the content is very deep..I am still enjoyed it
We got different angle of The world war 2 story from the eye of third world country who fought regional or small war after the fall of berlin
We also realize that The war is not always about heroic and supreme power hegemony of US or Soviet but from these books I am learning of the link between war that happened in 1940 with political problem of ...more

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Feb 01, 2017 James rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Burleigh's 'Small Wars...' is a comprehensive history of the Cold Wars colonial violence... in Asia, Africa and the Americas. A strongly written, and highly depressing, read, it slams to a halt with Johnson's escalation in Vietnam.

One imagines the author throwing his hands up in disgust at the history he had to review and write. History repeats ever more rapidly, and so does tragedy.

This is am important read for any modern historian, or reader filling in the gaps in their historical knowledge.

...more

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Oct 22, 2013 Robert rated it liked it

Disclosure: I won this book through Goodreads' giveaway program.

This is a well written, fascinating book. It's astounding how the effects of the disintegration of colonialism and empire are still shaking the world today. I enjoyed learning about conflicts that are so rarely well covered, if they're discussed at all! If you're interested in the subject matter, I'd definitely recommend this work to anyone. ...more

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Jan 01, 2014 Bill Ashe rated it really liked it

I learned a lot from this book. It's easy to get lost in the particulars of the many "small wars" that made up the Cold War, and this book does a great job of connecting and presenting them in the broad landscape of the social and political conflicts of the time. And what horrible wars they were. When people say we live in a violent and depressing time I'd point them to this book. We live in a paradise compare to the 50s and 60s. ...more

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About Michael Burleigh

Michael Burleigh

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Michael Burleigh is a British author and historian.
In 1977 Michael Burleigh took a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History at University College London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes. After a PhD in medieval history in 1982, he went on to hold posts at New College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Cardiff where he was Distinguished Research P ...more

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“The lesson, for our time, is that one should be careful to learn the lesson from the right phase of any earlier campaign, rather than imagining that what you prefer to do in the present worked like magic in the past. Was the Malayan Emergency really won through ‘hearts and minds’ and the herculean efforts of a charismatic general? Or did victory result from prior establishment of population and spatial dominance through military force, with hearts-and-minds warfare as a parenthesis before the democratic co-option of Chinese elites?” — 0 likes

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