This updated edition now contains a chapter on The Taliban and the Al-Qaeda terror network as well as new material on George W. Bush's war against terror.
You want to know more why Osama is Osama? Why groups like Baader-Meinhopf, Red Brigade and Sendero Luminoso killed (innocent) people?
Read this book. It's (to me) the gateway to understand the existence of contemporary terrorism. Nicely arranged and compiled making even those with limited knowledge on politics can still grasp the main discourse.
a mess conceptually, i think, because of the inclusion of tyrannicide as part of the early sections. difficult to imagine harmodius & aristogeiton as 'terrorists,' but there it is. perhaps it should serve as a reminder that 'terrorism' is simply the state's official designation of improper violence.
The complexity and misuse of the topic are hammered away at in the first chapter. Once the histories and descriptions of real groups begins, the reader gains some serious knowledge and backgrounds on a lot of names that still make headlines to this day.
Man this guy waffles on; I would read a paragraph, read it again, and still have no idea what point he was trying to put across. Fortunately he includes large excerpts of work from other writers, so you don't have to read too much of his own actual work.