An Anatomy of Terror: A History of Terrorism

by Andrew Sinclair

Andrew Sinclair's unique history of terrorism explores the methods and thinking behind terrorism and shows how the nature of terror has not changed since the days of the Assassins and the Mongol hordes. The only difference is that modern technology can kill in tens of millions rather than the tens of thousands the horror tactics of antiquity managed.

Genres: History, Terrorism, Nonfiction

415 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2003

About the author

Andrew Sinclair was born in Oxford in 1935 and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. After earning a Ph.D. in American History from Cambridge, he pursued an academic career in the United States and England. His first two novels, written while he was still at Cambridge, were both published in 1959: The Breaking of Bumbo (based on his own experience in the Coldstream Guards, and later adapted for a 1970 film written and directed by Sinclair) and My Friend Judas. Other early novels included The Project (1960), The Hallelujah Bum (1963), and The Raker (1964). The latter, also available from Valancourt, is a clever mix of Gothic fantasy and macabre comedy and was inspired by Sinclair’s relationship with Derek Lindsay, the pseudonymous author of the acclaimed novel The Rack (1958). Sinclair’s best-known novel, Gog (1967), a highly imaginative, picaresque account of the adventures of a seven-foot-tall man who washes ashore on the Scottish coast, naked and suffering from amnesia, has been named one of the top 100 modern fantasy novels. As the first in the ‘Albion Triptych’, it was followed by Magog (1972) and King Ludd (1988).

Sinclair’s varied and prolific career has also included work in film and a large output of nonfiction. As a director, he is best known for Under Milk Wood (1972), adapted from a Dylan Thomas play and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Sinclair’s nonfiction includes works on American history (including The Better Half: The Emancipation of the American Woman, which won the 1967 Somerset Maugham Award), books on Dylan Thomas, Jack London, Che Guevara, and Francis Bacon, and, more recently, works on the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.

Sinclair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1972. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Alish · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5

کتاب کالبدشکافی ترور در واقع درباره ترور نیست. بیشتر مثل کشکولی درباره خشونته. هر فصل درباره یکی از دوره های تاریک تاریخ بشر صحبت میکنه و کامنت‌هایی درباره بعضی جنبه‌هاش میده. بعضی فصل‌ها جالبه و بعضی نیست اما در مجموع کتاب مناسبی برای مطالعه درباره "ترور" نیست. برای یادگیری هم چندان به درد نمیخوره چون به بیشتر موضوعات نوک زده شده و توضیح کافی ارائه نشده. شاید بیشتر برای وقت پر کردن مناسب باشه. ضمنا ترجمه چندان خوبی هم نداره که البته به نظر میاد قلم نه چندان جالب نویسنده هم باعث شده ترجمه بدتر دربیاد.

[Ajay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever wanted to know about the darker side of human history. This is the book for you. Learn about the despotism of dictators and kings, the brutality of wars, and the subjugation, oppression, and holocaust of people. I picked up this book thinking I would learn about terrorists as I imagined from the modern era (the IRA, Al Qaeda, etc.) This book reshaped my definition of terror to include a much wider array of actors whose commonality is their use of fear and did a great job of covering their brutality and methods, but also their rationalizations and motives.

[Niklas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Sinclairin terrorismihistoria käsittelee erilaisia terrorin muotoja aina antiikin ajoista nykypäivään. Käsittelyn skaala on todella abstrakti, mutta eri aikakausiin tartutaan kiehtovien esimerkkien avulla. Intiassa vaikuttaneiden tugeeneiden (thuggee) historia oli itselle täysin vieras, joten järkytys on suuri kun Sinclair kuvaa tämän vuosisatoja vaikuttaneen ammattitappajien kultin vaiheita. Sinclairin käsittely ottaakin tasapuolisesti hampaisiinsa hyvin erilaisia toimijoita ja yhteiskuntajärjestyksiä ja osoittaa valtiollisen ja vastarintaan pyrkivän terrorin keskeisen roolin ihmiskunnan historiassa.

[David Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting catalogue of terror through society's history. A good account if not maybe a bit brief in the chapters. Very well researched but the last chapter suddenly turned into an opinion column. That was strange.

[Naveed Bokhari · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book presupposes that the reader has basic knowledge of important historical developments. The author has used a lot of examples and names without going into much detail of the actual events. The narration style too is a bit complex for me.

[Kevin Butler · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute drivel, couldn't get past page 30

[Asta Maska · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want to learn something reasonable about the history of terrorism, this should be the last book you take. It is too eclectic to be any good, jumps from one part of the world to another in an instant and, if that was not enough, is full of entirely nonsensical things. The later terrorist groups and state terrors are described quite decently, but one is hardly pressed to believe anything the author says when one sees the title 'the French revolution and the Illuminati' which is full of nonsensical stuff advanced already in the 18th century (and, mind you, in the literature on the entire section about the French revolution there are two books, both on secret societies, and dated 1924 and 1863, the former named 'the most accessible source'!). The books on terror in French revolution are all the same way ignoring all the developments in the field since 1994 (while the book itself is published in 2004). I must admit that by this part (and that is still close to the beginning), I was getting terribly impatient with this nonsense and just skimmed through the rest, which is no more than a list of who killed how much when and how, a little bit on what they said about violence and then some poetic interludes. The book even ends with poem at which point I roll my eyes and recommend people to find something better to read.
And please do not believe what it says on the cover that it is 'meticulously researched'. Most of his sources are dated, he ignores the current research on the topics of his investigation and in places he mixes things up (such as Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' which he attributes to her 'Origins of totalitarianism', when in fact the phrase appears in and is associated with 'Eichmann in Jerusalem').