Although the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 shocked the world, America has confronted terrorism at home for well over a century. With the invention of dynamite in 1866, Americans began to worry about anonymous acts of mass violence in a way that differed from previous generations' fears of urban riots, slave uprisings, and mob violence. Focusing on the volatile period between the 1886 Haymarket bombing and the 1920 bombing outside J. P. Morgan's Wall Street office, Jeffory Clymer argues that economic and cultural displacements caused by the expansion of industrial capitalism directly influenced evolving ideas about terrorism. In America's Culture of Terrorism, Clymer uncovers the roots of American terrorism and its impact on American identity by exploring the literary works of Henry James, Ida B. Wells, Jack London, Thomas Dixon, and Covington Hall, as well as trial transcripts, media reports, and the cultural rhetoric surrounding terrorist acts of the day. He demonstrates that the rise of mass media and the pressures of the industrial wage-labor economy both fueled the development of terrorism and shaped society's response to it. His analysis not only sheds new light on American literature and culture a century ago but also offers insights into the contemporary understanding of terrorism.

This scathing critique of U.S. political culture is a brilliant analysis of the Iran-contra scandal. Chomsky offers a message of hope, reminding us that resistance is possible, necessary, and effective.

The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism systematically integrates the substantial body of scholarship on terrorism and counterterrorism before and after 9/11. In doing so, it introduces scholars and practitioners to state of the art approaches, methods, and issues in studying and teaching these vital phenomena. This Handbook goes further than most existing collections by giving structure and direction to the fast-growing but somewhat disjointed field of terrorism studies. The volume locates terrorism within the wider spectrum of political violence instead of engaging in the widespread tendency towards treating terrorism as an exceptional act. Moreover, the volume makes a case for studying terrorism within its socio-historical context. Finally, the volume addresses the critique that the study of terrorism suffers from lack of theory by reviewing and extending the theoretical insights contributed by several fields - including political science, political economy, history, sociology, anthropology, criminology, law, geography, and psychology. In doing so, the volume showcases the analytical advancements and reflects on the challenges that remain since the emergence of the field in the early 1970s.

In the days after 9/11, Abigail R. Esman walked the streets of New York haunted by a feeling that was eerily familiar: the trauma of violence that hovered in the air. Friends, family, and strangers moved, walked, even stood as she herself had done earlier as a victim of domestic battery and abuse. Since then, Esman, a journalist who specializes in writing on terrorism and radicalization, has studied the connections between domestic abuse and terrorism and the forces that inspire both forms of violence. In Rage: Narcissism, Patriarchy, and the Culture of Terrorism Esman brings into focus the complex web that ties them together, illuminating the terrorist psyche and the cultures that create it. With this new approach to understanding terrorism and violence, Esman presents clear explanations of pathological narcissism and its roots in shame-honor cultures—both familial and sociopolitical—through portraits of terrorists and batterers, including O. J. Simpson, Osama bin Laden, Anders Breivik, and Dylann Roof. The insights of psychiatrists, former white supremacists, Islamist terrorists, national security experts, and others elaborate her thesis, while Esman’s own experiences with abuse and the aftermath of 9/11 on the streets of New York City further enrich the narrative. At a time when so many lives are threatened by public violence and terrorism, understanding the forces that incite them has become crucial, and finding solutions, urgent. Esman proposes social and policy initiatives aimed at reducing violence while engendering social equality and enriching women’s rights. Such proposals, she argues, are essential to overcoming the cultural and political forces that hinder progress toward security and peace. This groundbreaking book sheds new light on the roots of violence and terrorism while advancing proactive measures to protect our values and traditions of justice, equality, and freedom.

A fundamentally new interpretation of the emergence of modern terrorism, arguing that it formed in the Russian literary imagination well before any shot was fired or bomb exploded.

In the 1960s Donald Barthelme came to prominence as the leader of the Postmodern movement. He was a fixture at the New Yorker, publishing more than 100 short stories, including such masterpieces as "Me and Miss Mandible," the tale of a thirty-five-year-old sent to elementary school by clerical error, and "A Shower of Gold," in which a sculptor agrees to appear on the existentialist game show Who Am I? He had a dynamic relationship with his father that influenced much of his fiction. He worked as an editor, a designer, a curator, a news reporter, and a teacher. He was at the forefront of literary Greenwich Village which saw him develop lasting friendships with Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, Grace Paley, and Norman Mailer. Married four times, he had a volatile private life. He died of cancer in 1989. The recipient of many prestigious literary awards, he is best remembered for the classic novels Snow White, The Dead Father, and many short stories, all of which remain in print today. Hiding Man is the first biography of Donald Barthelme, and it is nothing short of a masterpiece.

This book investigates counterterrorism responses from a strategic-culturalist perspective, focusing on France and Italy in the post-9/11 era. Terrorism occupies a predominant space within contemporary political debate across all European countries. Recent attacks in Europe have raised many questions about the status of counterterrorism structures within European countries, revealing a wide range of practical as well as discursive security implications. This work provides an original contribution to the understanding of counterterrorism by asking how values, norms, and a shared sense of identity matter in policy dynamics. It explores and assesses which cultural elements are relevant for the fight against terrorism and investigates the impact which these elements can have on practical approaches to terrorism. Despite the current attention to terrorist attacks in Europe, the cases of France and Italy in counterterrorism affairs are particularly overlooked by the existing literature; this book analyses, questions, and examines the strategy of these two countries through the instruments offered by the culturalist approaches to strategy. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism studies, discourse analysis, European politics, security studies, and international relations in general.