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Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism
by: Michael Burleigh

List Price: £25.00

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780007241279
ISBN: 0007241275
Label: HarperPress
Manufacturer: HarperPress
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: February 18, 2008
Publisher: HarperPress
Studio: HarperPress
Sales Rank: 117336

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Fear the Praetorians more than the Barbarians?
Burleigh's book is raw, historical background which by volume would do credit to a good research assistant but, by value, needs editing and organisation. He chronicles a number of terrorist campaigns, deals with movements - the attention seekers - violent struggles in Spain and Ireland. He then considers Islamic terrorism. The trouble with raw data it is hard to digest.

In a book of too few conclusions, he points out that terrorism attracts the worst and the dullest, a way of making mundane lives meaningful, gaining notoriety. It can be exciting, for a while. That "the milieu of terrorists is morally squalid, when it is not merely criminal" often gullible and psychotic. Idealists usually are weaker than the criminals attracted ... Read More:

Rating:

- Readable but Lacking
Overall, I was disappointed with book. It is a potted history of several terrorist conflicts, unsurprisingly focusing on the most recents ones within the last 40 years. It gives very little insight into common themes between conflicts, why and how they occur, what sustains them and why they end. It touches on, but doesn't really explore the link and crossover between terrorism and criminality.

The only theme that comes through consistently is Burleigh's total contempt for terrorists and their idealology. This is done through acid one liners which show the moral bankcruptcy and double standards of the terrorist whenever they try and justify their actions. This is fine (though this does get tedious towrds the end) and I can't disagree ... Read More:

Rating:

- a brave and fearless analysis
I enjoyed, and felt educated by, this book. Unlike the previous reviewer I had not read any of the author's other work, and so remain uncontaminated by earlier facts and their possible recycling (unavoidable, perhaps, in a subject of this nature).
As a lawyer (albeit one who has never been instructed in a terrorist case) I found the comments about the legal profession somewhat tendentious and not a little odd. However I would not put anyone off reading this substantial and serious book for the many valuable insights it has provided.

Rating:

- A disappointment
Having enjoyed "The Third Reich" and "Sacred Causes", I was looking forward to this book. Sadly it did not live up to my expectations. It seemed to be a "pot-boiler" which recycled much of the information in "Sacred Causes". Too often it was a recital of terrorist acts with not enough analysis or insight. More worryingly, as a Northern Ireland resident, I was unhappy with factual inaccuracies on the "troubles" here which undermined my confidence in the information elsewhere in the book in areas with which I was less familiar.

Books : Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism