Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction
Charles Townshend
Language: English
Pages: 176
ISBN: 0199603944
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Is one person's terrorist another's freedom fighter? Is terrorism crime or war? Can there be a 'War on Terror'?
For many, the terrorist attacks of September 2001 changed the face of the world, pushing terrorism to the top of many political agendas, and leading to a series of world events including the war in Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan. Charting a clear path through the efforts to understand and explain modern terrorism, Charles Townshend unravels a series of complex questions, including 'Are terrorists criminals?', 'How far does media publicity sustain terrorism?', and 'What can be done about it?'
Fully updated for 2011, this Very Short Introduction examines the historical, ideological, and local roots of terrorist violence. Townshend explores terrorism in relation to revolutionary power, nationalism, and religious extremism, considering the successes of specific terrorist and anti-terrorist campaigns in the distant past, and in recent years. Providing a discussion surrounding the on-going debates about the erosion of civil liberties in response to increased terrorist activities, Townshend addresses the question we are all facing: how does terrorism end?
The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America's Rush to War
Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency
American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
terrorist is noble, terrible, irresistibly fascinating, for he Terrorism Superterror? Can things get any worse? It has become clear over the last decade that we need to look into the future, to assess the possibility of terrorists acquiring and using so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMD) – chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Although they did not involve such weapons, the unprecedented scale of the September 11 attacks seemed to bring this exponential expansion of destruction a
retaliation was carefully controlled by the FLN), and the closest the OAS came to its aim of generating a settler revolt was a series of bloody but ineffective clashes between civilians and French troops in the Bab el Ouad section of Algiers. Terrorism of this was the point. In the French army, whose refusal to back the rebels was crucial in preserving the Republic, some officers came to profess regret at their lack of courage. The rebel leaders were later incorporated in a nostalgic colonial
socialism, Prince Peter Kropotkin, the most rational and humane of the Russian anarchists (generally a rational and humane lot), thought he had a persuasive explanation. ‘Actions which compel general attention’ led the new idea to ‘seep into people’s minds’. A single act could ‘in a few days, make more propaganda than thousands of pamphlets’, and, Above all, it awakens the spirit of revolt; it breeds daring . . . Soon it becomes apparent that the established order does not have the strength often
on the Provisional IRA through the policy of ‘criminalization’ in the late 1970s, starting with the withdrawal of the political status given to republican internees. (Admittedly, the idea of ‘political status’ had always been dubious in British law – a point Mrs Thatcher relentlessly proclaimed with her mantra ‘crime is crime is crime’ – but the decision to make an issue of this was significant.) The IRA’s response, the hunger strike campaign, equally proclaimed its determination to assert its
Cambridge University Press, 1991) state sponsorship: Yonah Alexander, ‘State Sponsored Terrorism’, Centre for Contemporary Studies (Occasional Paper No. 3), London, 1986 superterror: Ehud Sprinzak, ‘The Great Superterrorism Scare’, Foreign Policy No. 112 (Fall 1998); Jessica Stern, The Ultimate Terrorists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); Thomas Copeland, ‘Is the ‘‘New Terrorism’’ Really New?’, Journal of Conflict Studies (Winter 2001) Chapter 3 French Revolution: ‘Commission
