NCJ Number
104527
Date Published
1987
Length
287 pages
Annotation
This book focuses on the psychology of terrorism and its social causes, arguing that a uniform counterterrorist retaliation policy is irrelevant when dealing with locally rooted and politically diverse terrorist groups.
Abstract
The author initially debunks the myth of the terrorist as a suicidal robot programmed by foreign manipulators. He defines terrorism as the violence of the intelligentsia, produced when a social crisis radicalizes and isolates them. In this context, terrorism represents an attempt by militant intellectuals to shoot their way out of isolation by catching the masses in the crossfire of their battle with the state. An explanation of terrorism's social causes provides guidelines for predicting when and where major terrorist campaigns will erupt. Theories and practices of the major schools of modern terrorism are compared: anarcho-communists like the Red Brigades, nationalists such as the IRA Provisionals and the Palestinian PFLP, and fascists such as the French European National Fascists. The book also investigates the relationship between terrorism and social revolution and the terrorists' role in modern struggles for national liberation. Chapternotes and index.