Purchase
Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat
Random House
September 2006
On Sale: September 5, 2006
336 pages
ISBN: 1400064813
EAN: 9781400064816
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction Political
How can the most powerful country in the world feel so
threatened by an enemy infinitely weaker than we are? How
can loving parents and otherwise responsible citizens join
terrorist movements? How can anyone possibly believe that
the cause of Islam can be advanced by murdering passengers
on a bus or an airplane? In this important new book,
groundbreaking scholar Louise Richardson answers these
questions and more, providing an indispensable guide to the
greatest challenge of our age. After defining–once and for all–what terrorism is,
Richardson explores its origins, its goals, what’s to come,
and what is to be done about it. Having grown up in rural
Ireland and watched her friends join the Irish Republican
Army, Richardson knows from firsthand experience how
terrorism can both unite and destroy a community. As a
professor at Harvard, she has devoted her career to
explaining terrorist movements throughout history and around
the globe. From the biblical Zealots to the medieval Islamic
Assassins to the anarchists who infiltrated the cities of
Europe and North America at the turn of the last century,
terrorists have struck at enemies far more powerful than
themselves with targeted acts of violence. Yet Richardson
understands that terrorists are neither insane nor immoral.
Rather, they are rational political actors who often deploy
carefully calibrated tactics in a measured and reasoned way.
What is more, they invariably go to great lengths to justify
their actions to themselves, their followers, and, often,
the world. Richardson shows that the nature of terrorism did not change
after the attacks of September 11, 2001; what changed was
our response. She argues that the Bush administration’s
“global war on terror†was doomed to fail because of an
ignorance of history, a refusal to learn from the experience
of other governments, and a fundamental misconception about
how and why terrorists act. As an alternative, Richardson
offers a feasible strategy for containing the terrorist
threat and cutting off its grassroots support. The most comprehensive and intellectually rigorous account
of terrorism yet, What Terrorists Want is a daring
intellectual tour de force that allows us, at last, to
reckon fully with this major threat to today’s global order.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy