Leigh Neville is an Australian national who has written many books on modern warfare and special operations forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, their weapons and their vehicles. He has also consulted on military topics for several wargame companies and television documentary makers. He lives in Sydney with his wife and two dogs. He can be contacted via his website at www.leighneville.com.

Over the last 30 years, the 'technical' or armed pick-up truck has become arguably the most ubiquitous military land vehicle of modern warfare.

Harking back to the armed Jeeps and Chevrolet trucks of the SAS and Long Range Desert Group in North Africa in World War II, the world's first insurgent technicals were those of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army in Algeria in the late 1970s, followed by the Chadian use of technical in the so-called Toyota War against Libya. Since then, technicals have seen use in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as being used by Western and Russian Special Forces.

Fully illustrated with commissioned artwork and providing rigorous analysis, this is the first history of how this deceptively simple fighting vehicle has been used and developed in conflicts worldwide.