The first global history of the secret diplomatic and police campaign against anarchist terrorism from 1880 to the 1920s.

An accessible and comprehensive history of terrorism from ancient times to the present In the years since 9/11, there has been a massive surge in interest surrounding the study of terrorism. This volume applies distinguished military historian John Lynn’s lifetime of research and teaching experience to this difficult topic. As a form of violence that implies the threat of future violence, terrorism breeds insecurity, vulnerability, and a desire for retribution that has far-reaching consequences. Lynn distinguishes between the paralyzing effect of fear and the potentially dangerous and chaotic effects of moral outrage and righteous retaliation guiding counterterrorism efforts. In this accessible and comprehensive text, Lynn traces the evolution of terrorism over time, exposing its constants and contrasts. In doing so, he contextualizes this violence and argues that a knowledge of the history and nature of terrorism can temper its psychological effects, and can help us more accurately and carefully assess threats as well as develop informed and measured responses.

Though the history of terrorism stretches back to the ancient world, today it is often understood as a recent development. Comprehensive enough to serve as a survey for students or newcomers to the field, yet with enough depth to engage the specialist, The Routledge History of Terrorism is the first single-volume authoritative reference text to place terrorism firmly into its historical context. Terrorism is a transnational phenomenon with a convoluted history that defies easy periodization and narrative treatment. Over the course of 32 chapters, experts in the field analyze its historical significance and explore how and why terrorism emerged as a set of distinct strategies, tactics, and mindsets across time and space. Chapters address not only familiar topics such as the Northern Irish Troubles, the Palestine Liberation Organization, international terrorism, and the rise of al-Qaeda, but also lesser-explored issues such as: American racial terrorism state terror and terrorism in the Middle Ages tyrannicide from Ancient Greece and Rome to the seventeenth century the roots of Islamist violence the urban guerrilla, terrorism, and state terror in Latin America literary treatments of terrorism. With an introduction by the editor explaining the book’s rationale and organization, as well as a guide to the definition of terrorism, an historiographical chapter analysing the historical approach to terrorism studies, and an eight-chapter section that explores critical themes in the history of terrorism, this book is essential reading for all those interested in the past, present, and future of terrorism.

This edited collection provides an in-depth account of the history of key developments in transnational criminal law. While the history of international criminal law is now a much written about topic, the origins of most modern transnational criminal laws are not well understood. Histories of Transnational Criminal Law provides for the first time a set of legal histories of state efforts to combat and cooperate against transnational crime. With contributions from a group of word-leading experts, this edited volume traverses a range of topics, beginning with the normative, intellectual, and institutional histories of transnational criminal law. It then moves to the histories of specific transnational crimes ranging across eras from piracy to cybercrime, and finishes by examining jurisdiction, modes of liability, different forms of procedural cooperation, and the predicament of the individual in transnational criminal law. The book highlights specific issues and how they have been resolved, in the loose assemblage of norms, institutions, and practices that constitutes transnational criminal law.

A "lively, fast-paced history" (Adam Hochschild, bestselling author of American Midnight) of America’s anarchist movement and the government’s tireless efforts to destroy it In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, government officials launched a decades-long “war on anarchy,” a brutal program of spying, censorship, and deportation that set the foundations of the modern surveillance state. The lawyers who came to the anarchists’ defense advanced groundbreaking arguments for free speech and due process, inspiring the emergence of the civil liberties movement. American Anarchy tells the gripping tale of the anarchists, their allies, and their enemies, showing how their battles over freedom and power still shape our public life.

'The most comprehensive narrative of intelligence compiled ... unrivalled' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Captivating, insightful and masterly' Edward Lucas, The Times The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The first mention of espionage in world literature is in the Book of Exodus.'God sent out spies into the land of Canaan'. From there, Christopher Andrew traces the shift in the ancient world from divination to what we would recognize as attempts to gather real intelligence in the conduct of military operations, and considers how far ahead of the West - at that time - China and India were. He charts the development of intelligence and security operations and capacity through, amongst others, Renaissance Venice, Elizabethan England, Revolutionary America, Napoleonic France, right up to sophisticated modern activities of which he is the world's best-informed interpreter. What difference have security and intelligence operations made to course of history? Why have they so often forgotten by later practitioners? This fascinating book provides the answers.

An accessible, authoritative history of terrorism, offering systematic analyses of key themes, problems and case studies from terrorism's long past.

Terrorism's roots in Western Europe and the USA This book examines key cases of terrorist violence to show that the invention of terrorism was linked to the birth of modernity in Europe, Russia and the United States, rather than to Tsarist despotism in 19th century Russia or to Islam sects in Medieval Persia. Combining a highly readable historical narrative with analysis of larger issues in social and political history, the author argues that the dissemination of news about terrorist violence was at the core of a strategy that aimed for political impact on rulers as well as the general public. Dietze's lucid account also reveals how the spread of knowledge about terrorist acts was, from the outset, a transatlantic process. Two incidents form the book's centerpiece. The first is the failed attempt to assassinate French Emperor Napoléon III by Felice Orsini in 1858, in an act intended to achieve Italian unity and democracy. The second case study offers a new reading of John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859, as a decisive moment in the abolitionist struggle and occurrences leading to the American Civil War. Three further examples from Germany, Russia, and the US are scrutinized to trace the development of the tactic by first imitators. With their acts of violence, the "invention" of terrorism was completed. Terrorism has existed as a tactic since then and has essentially only been adapted through the use of new technologies and methods.

A thrilling account of the 1911 Siege of Sidney Street—when a young Winston Churchill allowed two immigrant revolutionaries to burn to death in London’s East End. On January 3, 1911, police discovered Latvian revolutionaries on the lam in London’s East End. A six-hour gunfight ensued until fire consumed the building where the radicals had taken refuge. When a not-yet-prime-minister Winston Churchill arrived at the scene, he ordered officials to let the fire run its course. At least two people burned to death in the blaze, but the Latvian ringleader, Peter the Painter, remained at large. Known as the Siege of Sidney Street, the event was a nationwide sensation and ignited fierce debates about immigration, extremism, and law enforcement. This book unravels the full story of the siege, the Latvian expatriates, and London’s vibrant anarchist movement in the early twentieth century.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Jews from Central and Eastern Europe arrived in New York City, where they did not only find a new home, but far away from their shtetl origin, the new members of the American society also began to politically radicalize. There has been a discussion in the literature related to the field, where, how, and why the Jewish population radicalized. This study analyses two waves of radicalization: one related to the American environment that is responsible for the described process at the end of the 19th century; one, related to the developments in Eastern Europe during the early decades of the 20th century. For both radicalization processes this book compares the reasons, elements, and aims of those who join radical movements to show that there is a transatlantic perspective that links both processes to each other.