Waves of Global Terrorism

David Rapoport, the founding editor of Terrorism & Political Violence, has been a preeminent authority on assassination, terrorism, political and religious violence since the early 1970s. He was the first to recognize the importance of religion in rebel violence and is today considered one of the founding fathers of the study of terrorism. His signature contribution to the field may well be his introduction of wave theory which identified four distinct waves of global terror from the 1880s to the present day. Waves of Global Terrorism is the first monographic treatment of wave theory and will stand as the final word for the history of global terrorism from the 19th through the 21st centuries.

Auteur
David C. Rapoport is distinguished professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Assassination and Terrorism (1971), Inside Terrorist Organizations (Columbia, 1988), and Terrorism: Critical Concepts in Political Science (2006). Rapoport was the founding editor of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence.

Texte du rabat

David C. Rapoport, a preeminent scholar of political violence, identifies and analyzes four distinct waves of global terrorism. He examines the dynamics of each wave, contrasting their tactics, targets, and goals and placing them in the context of the much longer history of terrorism.

Résumé
Terrorism is a persistent form of political violence, but it appears intermittently, afflicting certain places in certain eras while others remain unscathed. Since the late nineteenth century, it has risen and fallen in recurrent generation-long spasms in which hundreds of short-lived groups wreak havoc. Why have past outbreaks of terror tended to come in waves, and how does this pattern shed light on future threats?

David C. Rapoport, a preeminent scholar of political violence, identifies and analyzes four distinct waves of global terrorism. He examines the dynamics of each wave, contrasting their tactics, targets, and goals and placing them in the context of the much longer history of terrorism. Global terror emerged in the 1880s after technological changes transformed communication and transportation and dynamite enabled individuals or small groups to carry out bombings. Emanating from Russia, a first wave of anarchists assassinated prominent figures in what they called propaganda of the deed. This was followed by a second wave of anticolonial terrorism that arose in the British Empire in the 1920s. Beginning in the 1960s, a third wave of New Left movements took hostages and hijacked airplanes. Most recently, religious movementsmostly but not entirely in the Islamic worldhave constituted a fourth wave, pioneering self-martyrdom or suicide bombing. Rapoport also considers whether a fifth wave of anti-immigrant or white supremacist terror is emerging today. Recasting the complex history of modern political violence, Waves of Global Terrorism makes a major contribution to our understanding of the roots of contemporary terrorism.

Contenu
Introduction

1. Terrorism Before the Global Form: From the First Century to the Twentieth
2. The First Wave: Anarchist, 18791920s
3. The Second Wave: Anticolonial, 19191960s
4. The Third Wave: New Left, 1960s1990s
5. The Fourth Wave: Religious, 19792020s?
   Conclusion: The Fifth Wave?
   Notes
   Index