Throughout history cities have been at the center of warfare from sieges to street-fighting from peace-keeping to coups de mains. Sun Tzu admonished his readers of The Art of War that the lowest realization of warfare was to attack a fortified city. Indeed although strategists have advised against it across the millennia armies & generals have been forced nonetheless to attack & defend cities & victory has required that they do it well. In Concrete Hell Louis Di Marco has provided a masterful study of the brutal realities of urban warfare of what it means to seize & hold a city literally block by block. Such a study could not be more timely. We live in an increasingly urbanizing world a military unprepared for urban operations is unprepared for tomorrow. Di Marco masterfully studies the successes & failures of past battles in order to provide lessons for todays tacticians.