The Red Brigades were a far-left terrorist group in Italy formed in 1970 and active all through the 1980s. Infamous around the world for a campaign of assassinations, kidnappings, and bank robberies intended as a "concentrated strike against the heart of the State," the Red Brigades' most notorious crime was the kidnapping and murder of Italy's former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. In the late 1990s, a new group of violent anticapitalist terrorists revived the name Red Brigades and killed a number of professors and government officials. Like their German counterparts in the Baader-Meinhof Group and today's violent political and religious extremists, the Red Brigades and their actions raise a host of questions about the motivations, ideologies, and mind-sets of people who commit horrific acts of violence in the name of a utopia. In the first English edition of a book that has won critical acclaim and major prizes in Italy, Alessandro Orsini contends that the dominant logic of the Red Brigades was essentially eschatological, focused on purifying a corrupt world through violence. Only through revolutionary terror, Brigadists believed, could humanity be saved from the putrefying effects of capitalism and imperialism. Through a careful study of all existing documentation produced by the Red Brigades and of all existing scholarship on the Red Brigades, Orsini reconstructs a worldview that can be as seductive as it is horrifying. Orsini has devised a micro-sociological theory that allows him to reconstruct the group dynamics leading to political homicide in extreme-left and neonazi terrorist groups. This "subversive-revolutionary feedback theory" states that the willingness to mete out and suffer death depends, in the last analysis, on how far the terrorist has been incorporated into the revolutionary sect. Orsini makes clear that this political-religious concept of historical development is central to understanding all such self-styled "purifiers of the world." From Thomas Müntzer's theocratic dream to Pol Pot's Cambodian revolution, all the violent "purifiers" of the world have a clear goal: to build a perfect society in which there will no longer be any sin and unhappiness and in which no opposition can be allowed to upset the universal harmony. Orsini’s book reconstructs the origins and evolution of a revolutionary tradition brought into our own times by the Red Brigades.

An accessible and comprehensive history of terrorism from ancient times to the present In the years since 9/11, there has been a massive surge in interest surrounding the study of terrorism. This volume applies distinguished military historian John Lynn's lifetime of research and teaching experience to this difficult topic. As a form of violence that implies the threat of future violence, terrorism breeds insecurity, vulnerability, and a desire for retribution that has far-reaching consequences. Lynn distinguishes between the paralyzing effect of fear and the potentially dangerous and chaotic effects of moral outrage and righteous retaliation guiding counterterrorism efforts. In this accessible and comprehensive text, Lynn traces the evolution of terrorism over time, exposing its constants and contrasts. In doing so, he contextualizes this violence and argues that a knowledge of the history and nature of terrorism can temper its psychological effects, and can help us more accurately and carefully assess threats as well as develop informed and measured responses.

This book explores the communicative practices of the Italian radical group Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse, or BR), the relationship the group established with the Italian press, and the specific social historical context in which the BR developed both its own self-understanding and its complex dialectical connection with the society at large. The BR’s worldview and the dominant ideology(ies) mediated by the press are treated as competing responses to structural issues of Italian history: the structural weakness of the nation state, the contradictions of an uneven economic development, and the consequent struggle of the bourgeois class to achieve hegemonic rule.

This sweeping reference work covers every aspect of the Cold War, from its ignition in the ashes of World War II, through the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multivolume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material.

Though the history of terrorism stretches back to the ancient world, today it is often understood as a recent development. Comprehensive enough to serve as a survey for students or newcomers to the field, yet with enough depth to engage the specialist, The Routledge History of Terrorism is the first single-volume authoritative reference text to place terrorism firmly into its historical context. Terrorism is a transnational phenomenon with a convoluted history that defies easy periodization and narrative treatment. Over the course of 32 chapters, experts in the field analyze its historical significance and explore how and why terrorism emerged as a set of distinct strategies, tactics, and mindsets across time and space. Chapters address not only familiar topics such as the Northern Irish Troubles, the Palestine Liberation Organization, international terrorism, and the rise of al-Qaeda, but also lesser-explored issues such as: American racial terrorism state terror and terrorism in the Middle Ages tyrannicide from Ancient Greece and Rome to the seventeenth century the roots of Islamist violence the urban guerrilla, terrorism, and state terror in Latin America literary treatments of terrorism. With an introduction by the editor explaining the book’s rationale and organization, as well as a guide to the definition of terrorism, an historiographical chapter analysing the historical approach to terrorism studies, and an eight-chapter section that explores critical themes in the history of terrorism, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the past, present, and future of terrorism.

This book uses a cross-disciplinary approach to examine the creation, development, ideology, and practice of the Marxist terrorist group 17N. Were the members of 17N individuals with high moral principles, as they claimed, who did their best to protect the civilians who happened to be within their field of operations? Or were they simply violent guerillas who prioritized successful assassinations of their targets at any cost? The textual analysis of this book addresses these questions and studies 17N from inception to the time when its members were arrested, providing a uniquely thorough examination of the organization manifestos and its correlation to the group's ideology and actual practices. 17N's Philosophy of Terror: An Analysis of the 17 November Revolutionary Organization first outlines the political and ideological framework of 17? and then describes their terrorist strategy and tactics. The authors consider these operations in the context of the manifestos that followed the terrorist acts, and conclude the work by addressing the events following the apprehension of 17N members—the trial, the verdicts, the appeal trial, and the conclusion of appeal trial.

Examining novels by celebrated authors, some neglected and some brand new texts, Arin Keeble offers a detailed analysis of the ways novels from around the world have represented terrorism in the early twenty-first century. Over five chapters, he uncovers a movement away from event-based narratives toward depictions of terrorism as a violent symptom or feature of twenty-first century world-systems and neoliberalism. Beginning with the early literary response to 9/11 and the 9/11 novel genre, the book moves through more recent depictions of the endless 'war on terror', state terror, white nationalist terror and historical narratives of terror that resonate in the current political climate. In doing so, it examines the changing ways literature has sought to make sense of both the reasons why terrorism occurs and the effects it has on victims, survivors and international and intercultural relations.