Robert B. Asprey

He had an older brother and sister, actinide and fluorine chemist Larned B. Asprey (1919–2005), a signer of the Szilárd petition,[2] and mathematician and computer scientist Winifred Asprey (1917–2007), founder of Vassar College's computer science department.

In 1949, Asprey received his BA (honors) in English and modern history from the University of Iowa.

[1] In the 1950s, he served in U.S. Army Intelligence in Austria before returning to the Marine Corps in the Korean War with the rank of captain.

Originally released in two volumes in 1975, the book was revised and abridged in 1994 as a single-volume second edition.

Chapters were added later covering the end of the Vietnam War and other guerrilla conflicts since the book's original version.