"The term "Assassins" is employed in this book to identify those Ismailis who at the end of the eleventh century acknowledged Nizar as their Imam and who in the twelfth century accept the Aga Khan as such."--Foreword.

Remains the most complete history of the Assassins. Beginning the story with the separation of Sunnis and Shi'ites and the rise of Ismâ'îlism, an offshoot of Shi'ism, Hodgson traces the long and complex history of power struggles within Islam that led ultimately to the separation of the Nizârî Ismâ'îlîs and their direct challenge to Muslim leadership.

An examination of the motives for murder from the bestselling author of The Outsider—“Colin Wilson puts the Manson murders in coldly sharp perspective” (Evening Standard). Why is the “motiveless” murder an increasing phenomenon today? What is the mentality behind the Manson massacres and other shocking cases of brutal killing—too frequent to be written off as isolated cases? In his penetrating exploration of murder, Colin Wilson suggests that the apparently meaningless violence so frighteningly prevalent today is the result of boredom and frustration induced by a repressive society. Particular individuals of high creative potential are thwarted in their natural drives and ambitions and are forced to tread the deadly path of homicide. Colin Wilson traces this path, describing in detail many instances of violent crime, and provides valuable insights that may point to an explanation.

The image of the anarchist assassin haunted the corridors of power and the popular imagination in the late nineteenth century. Fear spawned a gross but persistent stereotype: a swarthy "Italian" armed with a bloody knife or revolver and bred to violence by a combination of radical politics, madness, innate criminality, and poor genes. That Italian anarchists targeted--and even killed--high-profile figures added to their exaggerated, demonic image. Nunzio Pernicone and Fraser M. Ottanelli dig into the transnational experiences and the historical, social, cultural, and political conditions behind the phenomenon of anarchist violence in Italy. Looking at political assassinations in the 1890s, they illuminate the public effort to equate anarchy's goals with violent overthrow. Throughout, Pernicone and Ottanelli combine a cutting-edge synthesis of the intellectual origins, milieu, and nature of Italian anarchist violence with vivid portraits of its major players and their still-misunderstood movement. A bold challenge to conventional thinking, Assassins against the Old Order demolishes a century of myths surrounding anarchist violence and its practitioners.