World: How to Seize a Country

DURING the past 23 years, more than half of the world's governments have been overthrown by coups d'etat. Conspirators are increasingly aware that complex societies are vulnerable to attack. Slash a wire, start a rumor, dump LSD into reservoirs: today any determined guerrilla can stop The System. One man with one bullet can change history. A handful can take over a country.

This knowledge has now been systematized in Coup d'Etat, A Practical Handbook, which shows that in practice things are not so easy. Published in the U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., the...