This volume addresses the problem of small, irregular, and unconventional war across time and around the globe. The use of non-uniformed and often civilian combatants, with tactics eschewing pitched battles, is the most common form of warfare throughout history and comes in many forms.

Chapter 1: Introduction Guerrillas and Counterinsurgency in History; Brian Hughes and Fergus Robson.- Part I: Insurgents, Counter-Insurgency, and Civilians in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.- Chapter 2: Gender and 'Population-centric' Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan; Julia Welland.- Chapter 3: 'The Best Fellagha Hunter is the French of North African Descent': Harkis in French Algeria; Raphaëlle Branche.- Chapter 4: 'Black-and-Tan tendencies': policing insurgency in the Palestine Mandate, 1922-48; Seán William Gannon.- Chapter 5: 'The Entire Population of this God-forsaken Island is Terrorised by a Small Band of Gun-men': Guerrillas and Civilians during the Irish Revolution; Brian Hughes.- Chapter 6: American Civil War Guerrillas; Daniel E. Sutherland.- Part II: Small War from the Early Modern World to Antiquity.- Chapter 7: Insurgent Identities, Destructive Discourses, and Militarized Massacre: French Armies on the Warpath Against Insurgents in the Vendée, Italy, and Egypt; Fergus Robson.- Chapter 8: Lords of the Forests in Flanders: Small War by Freebooters and the Dutch Contributions System in Flanders, 1584-1592; Tim Piceu.- Chapter 9:'A Great Company of Country Clowns': Guerrilla Warfare in the East Anglian and Western Rebellions (1549); Alexander Hodgkins.- Chapter 10: Good King Robert's Testament?: Guerrilla Warfare in Later Medieval Scotland; Alastair J. Macdonald.- Chapter 11: Guerrilla Warfare and Revolt in 2nd Century BC Egypt; Brian McGing.- Chapter 12: Unorthodox Warfare? Variety and Change in Archaic Greek Warfare (ca. 700- ca. 480 B.C.E.); Matthew Lloyd.