Terrence G Peterson’s Revolutionary Warfare: How the Algerian War Made Modern Counterinsurgency is a deeply researched and strikingly lucid account of how one colonial war reshaped the meaning of modern warfare. The dramatic demonstrations of 1960 exposed the fragility of the colonial social order and the hollowness of military-led modernisation. In tracing how the Algerian War reshaped the very definition of warfare, Revolutionary Warfare reminds us that the past is not safely contained. The ideas forged in colonial Algeria continue to echo wherever states attempt to fight political conflict by managing societies themselves. Terrence G Peterson’s Revolutionary Warfare: How the Algerian War Made Modern Counterinsurgency is published by Cornell University Press