This authoritative work provides an essential perspective on terrorism by offering a rare opportunity for analysis and reflection at a time of ongoing violence, chilling threats, and renewed reprisals. In it, some of the best international specialists working on the subject today examine terrorism's long and complex history from antiquity to the present day and find that terror, long the weapon of the weak against the strong, is a tactic as old as warfare itself. Beginning with the Zealots of Antiquity, the contributors discuss the Assassins of the Middle Ages, the 1789 Terror movement in Europe, Bolshevik terrorism during the Russian Revolution, Stalinism, "resistance" terrorism during World War II, and Latin American revolutionary movements of the late 1960s. Finally, they consider the emergence of modern transnational terrorism, focusing on the roots of Islamic terrorism, al Qaeda, and the rise of the contemporary suicide martyr. Along the way, they provide a groundbreaking analysis of how terrorism has been perceived throughout history. What becomes powerfully clear is that only through deeper understanding can we fully grasp the present dangers of a phenomenon whose repercussions are far from over.

Includes essays by François Géré, Rohan Gunaratna, Olivier Hubac-Occhipinti, Ariel Merari, Philippe Migaux, Yves Ternon

Preface

1. Introduction
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin
2. Terrorism as a Strategy of Insurgency
Ariel Merari

PART I: THE PREHISTORY OF TERRORISM
3. Zealots and Assassins
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin
4. Manifestations of Terror through the Ages
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin

PART II: TERRORISM FROM 1789 TO 1968
5. The Invention of Modern Terror
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin
6. Anarchist Terrorists of the Nineteenth Century
Olivier Hubac-Occhipinti
7. Russian Terrorism, 1878–1908
Yves Ternon
8. The “Golden Age” of Terrorism
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin
9. Lenin, Stalin, and State Terrorism
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin
10. Terrorism in Time of War:
From War II to the Wars of National Liberation
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin

PART III: TERRORISM SINCE 1968
11. From 1968 to Radical Islam
Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin
12. The Roots of Islamic Radicalism
Philippe Migaux
13. Al Qaeda
Philippe Migaux
14. The Future of the Islamist Movement
Philippe Migaux
15. Suicide Operations: Between War and Terrorism
François Géré
16. The United States Confronting Terrorism
Arnaud Blin
17. Terrorism in South Asia
Rohan Gunaratna

Bibliography
Contributors
Index

Gérard Chaliand is an independent scholar who has held visiting professorships at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard University. He is the author of more than thirty-five works including The Art of War in History and Guerilla Strategies (both UC Press). Arnaud Blin is senior fellow at the French Institute for Strategic Analysis. He is coauthor, with Gérard Chaliand, of the Dictionnaire de stratégie militaire and America is Bac: Les nouveaux césars du pentagone, and, with Françoise Géré, of Puissances et influences: annuaire géopolitic et géostatégique.