Bibliographical Essay

The best single-volume introductions to modern terrorism are Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 3rd edn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017) and Charles Townshend, Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

The most-cited effort to organise all of modern terrorism into a historical framework is David C. Rapoport, ‘The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism’, in Audrey Kurth Cronin and James M. Ludes (eds.), Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), pp. 46-73. Martha Crenshaw [Henderson] (ed.), Terrorism in Context (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001 [1995]) provides a valuable methodological introduction and surveys of key movements and periods. Two standard works that survey the history of terrorism are Randall D. Law, Terrorism: A History, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016) and Gerard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin (eds.), The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to ISIS, rev. edn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016). For an extensive reference work, see Randall D. Law (ed.), The Routledge History of Terrorism (London: Routledge, 2015). Particularly valuable for its analysis and descriptions of the interaction of state and sub-state terrorisms is Martin A. Miller, The Foundations of Modern Terrorism: State, Society and the Dynamics of Political Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

The most important work to examine terrorism as a cultural and linguistic construct is Joseba Zulaika and William A. Douglass, Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism (London: Routledge, 1996). For a primer on critical terrorism studies, see Richard Jackson et al., Terrorism: A Critical Introduction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

The best anthology of primary sources is Walter Laqueur (ed.), Voices of Terror: Manifestos, Writings and Manuals of al Qaeda, Hamas, and Other Terrorists from around the World and throughout the Ages (New York: Reed, 2004).

On terror/ism in the French Revolution, see David Andress, The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005). On Karl Heinzen, see Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, ‘From the Dagger to the Bomb: Karl Heinzen and the Evolution of Political Terror', Terrorism and Political Violence 16.1 (2004), 97-115. The best work on the political and social milieu in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that produced modern terrorism is Adam Zamoyski, Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789-1848 (New York: Basic Books, 2015).

On Russian revolutionary terrorism, see Franco Venturi, The Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960) and Anna Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia, 1894-1917 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

For general works on anarchism and anarcho-terrorism, see James Joll, The Anarchists, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980) and Richard Bach Jensen, The Battle against Anarchist Terrorism, 1878-1934: An International History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). On Johann Most: Frederic Trautmann, The Voice of Terror: A Biography of Johann Most (Westport: Greenwood, 1980). For France: John Merriman, The Dynamite Club: How a Bombingin Fin-de-Siecle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009). For Spain: J. Romero Maura, ‘Terrorism in Barcelona and its Impact on Spanish Politics 1904-1909', Past Pr Pre^tt 41 (1968), 130-83.

The literature on terrorism in America is large and growing quickly. On the Molly Maguires, see Kevin Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). The classic study of the Haymarket Riot is Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). For a revisionist account, see Timothy Messer-Kruse, The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and Justice in the Gilded Age (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). The best work on terrorism in the United States in the nineteenth century is Michael Fellman, In the Name of God and Country: Reconsidering Terrorism in American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). For anarchist violence and the Red Scare of the 1910s-20s, see Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

The most valuable survey of the Ku Klux Klan is Wyn Craig Wade, The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1987]). On Reconstruction, see Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, rev. edn (New York: HarperPerennial, 2014). The two best studies of Klan and white supremacist violence during Reconstruction are George C. Rable, But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984) and Allen W. Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995 [1971]). On lynching in America, see Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (New York: Random House, 2002). For a pictorial account, see James Allen, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (Santa Fe: Twin Palms, 2000). The Equal Justice Initiative has published the most complete tally of racially inspired lynchings in Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, 3rd edn (2015).

For a general overview of ethno-nationalist terrorism, see Daniel Byman, ‘The Logic of Ethnic Terrorism’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 21.2 (1998), 149-69. Not surprisingly, there is a large and growing body of literature on the various ethno-nationalist/anti-colonial conflicts of the i940s-70s. For an excellent analysis of the various struggles waged against Britain mid century, see Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, Imperial Endgame: Britain's Dirty Wars and the End of Empire (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). On the role of terrorism and insurgency in the formation of Israel, see Bruce Hoffman, Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 (New York: Knopf, 2015). A well-regarded account of the Malayan Emergency is Noel Barber, War of the Running Dogs: Malaya, 1948-1960 (London: Cassell, 2004 [1971]). The classic study of the Algerian War of Independence is Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York: NYRB, 2006 [1977]); the new standard is Martin Evans, Algeria: France's Undeclared War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). For two excellent comparative analyses, see Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005 [2002]). For two distinctly different takes on Yasser Arafat and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) and Said Aburish, Arafat: From Defender to Dictator, rev. edn (New York: Bloomsbury, 2004). A comprehensive account of the Basque struggle is Ludger Mees, Nationalism, Violence, and Democracy: The Basque Clash of Identities (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

For a valuable survey and analysis of the radical leftist movements of the 1960s-80s, see Michael Freeman, Freedom or Security: The Consequences for Democracies Using Emergency Powers to Fight Terror (Westport: Praeger, 2003). A definitive history of the Tupamaros is yet to be written. In the meantime, the best account is Pablo Brum, The Robin Hood Guerrillas: The Epic Journey of Uruguay's Tupamaros (Scotts Valley: CreateSpace, 2014). See also Carlos Marighella, Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla (Montreal: Abraham Guillen Press, 2002 [1969]). On the various movements in the USA and Europe, see Bryan Burrough, Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence (New York: Penguin, 2015); Stefan Aust, Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Donatella Della Porta, ‘Left-Wing Terrorism in Italy’, in Martha Crenshaw [Henderson] (ed.), Terrorism in Context (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001 [1995]), pp. 105-59.

In recent decades, the market has been flooded with books on jihadism and radical Islamism; many are deeply polemical and of limited value. Among the best works are Reza Aslan, How to Win a Cosmic War (New York: Random House, 2009); Mary Habeck, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002); Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Modern Library, 2003). For the early history of the Muslim Brotherhood, see Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement, 1928-1942 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). On the key figure in the modern history of Islamism, see John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010) and Albert Bergesen (ed.), The Sayyid Qutb Reader (London: Routledge, 2007).

On Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and 9/ 11, see Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader (New York: Free Press, 2006); Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden (New York: Penguin, 2004); Leah Farrall, ‘How al-Qaeda Works', Foreign Affairs 90 (March-April 2011), 128-38; Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf, 2006). Bin Laden and al-Qaeda's statements are collected in Raymond Ibrahim (ed.), The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007). The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are exhaustively covered in Jason Burke, The 9/11 Wars (New York: Penguin, 2011) and Steve Coll, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (New York: Penguin, 2018).