A careful, sharp-edged study of warfare by other means.Terrorism,
writes British historian Burleigh (Sacred Causes: The Clash of
Religion and Politics from the Great War to the War on Terror,
2007, etc.), is "a tactic primarily used by non-state actors to
create a psychological climate of fear in order to compensate for
the legitimate political power they do not possess." In what is
likely to incite at least a little controversy, the author locates
the origins of terrorism not in the Assassin cult of medieval Syria
or the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, but instead in the Fenian movement
of the mid-19th century, when Irish dissidents rose up against
England and its presumed allies on three continents. The Fenians
were thwarted by combined actions undertaken by the U.S. and
British governments, but not before causing plenty of disorder and
mayhem. The same was so of the nihilists of Russia, who, like
contemporary anarchists elsewhere in Europe, tossed dynamite at the
police and the ruling class - many of those dynamiters, Burleigh
notes, were young upper-class women a la Patty Hearst. The author
adds that the anarchist bombers caused exaggerated panic that
"served to discredit political philosophies whose libertarian
impulses might otherwise strike some as praiseworthy." Less
exalted, to most modern sensibilities, are the aims of the modern
terrorists to whom Burleigh devotes the lion's share of the book,
foremost among them the Islamists. The context of jihadist
terrorism, he notes, is fairly young, traced to an outburst of
fundamentalist zealotry 30 years ago and marked by parallel
movements in other monotheistic faiths, though "without the same
violent effects." Burleigh is no relativist, and he has pointed
words for anyone who is, becoming quite like Pat Buchanan in the
concluding pages - save that Burleigh looks to the politicians of
Australia, and not Northern Virginia, to argue "that there are
lines in the sand...which are not going to be crossed."Readable and
provocative, though with a decidedly conservative cast. (Kirkus
Reviews)
A far-reaching history of terrorism across the world, from its
beginnings to the modern day, from the highly acclaimed author of
'Sacred Causes' and 'Earthly Powers'. The paperback edition will be
updated to cover recent events - including the recent terror
attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 and the continued military clash
in Gaza in early 2009. Basing his study on a wide range of sources
and key players from the world of terrorism, Burleigh explains and
defines the meaning of terrorism and marks its progression from its
hard-to-trace beginnings to the modern day. Burleigh takes us from
the origins of terrorism in the Irish Republican Brotherhood - the
precursors of the IRA - on to look at Tsarist Russia, where the
'intelligentsia' launched attacks on organs of state, and left-wing
fighting against 'Fascism' and 'Nazism' in the 1970s and 1980s in
western Germany and Italy. But such nationalist terrrorism has in
turn been eclipsed by international jihadist violence, largely
driven by widespread resentment of the successful societes of the
West. Burleigh explores the background and the milieu of people
engaged in careers of political violence, and examines their
various mindsets as revealed by their actions rather than their
words. He makes clear that the West has considerable resources to
comprehend and combat terrorism and shows how history enables us to
see how terrrorism can be effectively contained and countered - if
only by avoiding some of the major mistakes of the past. An
unrivalled study that sheds an insightful new light on a plight
that threatens to affect the world at large for many years to come,
'Blood and Rage' establishes Michael Burleigh as one of the most
original, learned and important historians of our time.
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