Robert B. Asprey



Robert Brown Asprey (1923 – January 26, 2009) was an American military historian and author, noted for his books on military history published between 1959 and 2001.

Asprey was born in Sioux City, Iowa; his parents were Gladys Brown Asprey and Peter Asprey Jr. He had an older brother and sister, actinide and fluorine chemist Larned B. Asprey (1919–2005), a signer of the Szilárd petition, and mathematician and computer scientist Winifred Asprey (1917–2007), founder of Vassar College's computer science department.

Asprey received a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa in 1949, after serving in World War II. He also studied at New College, Oxford, at the University of Vienna, and at the University of Nice.

In World War II, Asprey was a member of the secret Marine Beach Jumper Unit, then joined the 5th Marine Division. In the 1950s, he served in U.S. Army Intelligence in Austria before returning to the U.S. Marine Corps in the Korean War with the rank of captain. He received a Purple Heart and a Presidential Unit Citation for his service.

War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History
Perhaps Asprey's most famous book is the monumental War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, a sweeping 2500-year survey on the subject, with particular emphasis on the Vietnam War and the other guerrilla wars of the 20th century, including the underground actions that took place during conventional wars, from T.E. Lawrence of Arabia in the Great War to Mao Zedong before, during, and after the Second World War.

Originally released in two volumes in 1975, the book has been revised (and possibly abridged) at least once. Chapters were added later covering the end of the Vietnam War and other guerrilla conflicts since the book's original version. There is at least one version in a single volume, possibly abridged.

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