Terrorism, mass uprisings, and political extremism are in the news every day. It is no coincidence that these phenomena come together at the beginning of a new era. Radicals, Revolutionaries, and Terrorists provides a comprehensive survey of the intersection of radical social movements and political violence. The book considers eight essential questions for understanding radicalism, including its origins, dynamics, and outcomes. Ranging across the globe from the 1500s to the present, the book examines cases as diverse as nineteenth-century anarchists, the Nazis, Che Guevara, the Weather Underground, Chechen insurgents, the Earth Liberation Front, Al-Qaeda, and the Arab Spring. Throughout, Colin J. Beck connects these cases to key social movements literature to demonstrate how using multiple areas of research results in better explanations. Radicals, Revolutionaries, and Terrorists is an essential companion for understanding the challenges facing governments and societies today. Its engaging style and original approach make it indispensable for students and scholars across the social sciences who are interested in social movements.

The Weathermen. The Symbionese Liberation Army. The FALN. The Black Liberation Army. The names seem quaint now, but there was a stretch of time in America when there was on average more than one significant terrorist act in the U.S. every week. The FBI combated these groups and others as nodes in a single revolutionary underground, dedicated to the violent overthrow of the American government. Thus began a decade-long battle between the FBI and these homegrown terrorists, compellingly and thrillingly documented in Days of Rage.

Offers the first comprehensive analysis of the wave of revolutionary terrorism in affluent countries.

A systematic account of the right to resist oppression and of the forms of armed force it can justify.

Since the 1970s, Europe's last Marxist-Leninist terroriststhe Greek Revolutionary Organization 17 November have waged a violent campaign against US and NATO personnel, Turkish diplomats and members of the Greeks military and business elite. In May 2000 they assassinated a top British diplomat in Athens in a daring daylight attack. Yet no one suspected of belonging to the organization, let alone of being involved in its terror campaign, has ever been arrested. This is the first book to deal with revolutionary terrorism in Greece. Tracing the history of 17 November, Kassimeris demonstrates how it has persevered with a one-dimensional view of a world peopled by heroes and villains, that has precluded the emergence of a coherent ideology. Combining fanatical nationalism, contempt for the existing order, and the cult of violence for its own sake, 17 November has stubbornly refused to accept that its eclectic belief system is incompatible with modern democratic principles. Unlike Italy's Red Brigades or Germany's Red Army Faction, which both assailed "the capitalist state and its agents," 17 November hopes to create an insurrectionary mood that will propel the Greeks into revolutionary political action without disrupting society as a whole. As such, 17 November's terror campaign has been an audacious protest aimed at discrediting and humiliating the Greek establishment and the US government, but one that has never sought to develop widespread revolutionary guerrilla warfare.

First published in English in 2007 under title: The history of terrorism: from antiquity to al Qaeda.