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Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism |  | Author: Michael Burleigh
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
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Rating:  4 reviews
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Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 592
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 2
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.62509
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Product Description
Blood and Rage is a sweeping and deeply penetrating work of history that explores the nature of terrorism from its origins in the West to today's global threat fueled by fundamentalists. Distinguished historian Michael Burleigh ("There are few better writers at work today" —The Sunday Times) emphasizes the lethal resentments and the twisted morality that spawn terrorism rather than the ideological or religious justification that routinely accompanies it. He reveals who the terrorist groups are, how they organize and operate, what motivates their violence, and how wider support encourages them. Burleigh takes us from the roots of terrorism in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Russian Nihilists, and the London-based anarchists of Black International to the various terrorist campaigns that exist today. He also explores the lives of people engaged in careers of political violence and those who are most affected by terrorism. Burleigh argues persuasively that history enables us to see how terrorism can be effectively contained and countered by avoiding the major mistakes of the past and by exploiting weaknesses within terrorist organizations. The problems in today's world, as well—especially the chaos inflicted by terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan—reflect the tragic, disastrous, and far-reaching consequences of this long war. Authoritative, illuminating, and masterfully written, Blood and Rage sheds an unflinching light on the global threat that we are likely to face for decades to come.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Again, Burleigh Hit the Target November 16, 2009
Fernando Villegas (Santiago de Chile)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Michael Burleigh seems incapable of writing a mediocre book, much less a bad one. With this his examination of modern terrorism since middle XIX century is a wisely mixed exercise of enormous scholarly research and -not always an scholarly feature-deep penetrating intelligence. The reader gets a clear picture of this kind of disease as something coming, at last, from distorted social and cultural conditions in the middle of an atmosphere of suffocating lack of institutional alternatives, so there is no way to give an adequate expression to complains and the paths of sane development for new generations are kept closed. From this insane pot a first intent for violence as an illusory remedy of all that comes, next the fast development of sheer terrorism as almost a way of living with his unpleasant gallery of characters, blood lust, rage and brutality.
A great book.
A terrorist is a criminal with a false cause and a distorted sense of their own worth October 21, 2009
Dr. Nicholas P. G. Davies (Halifax, UK)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book. It was all the better for not making theories, or grand strategies, bit for its straightforward description of people and events. It shows that the people involved in terrorism are dangerous, usually on a basis of criminality or inadequacy. Giving a criminal a "noble cause" or a "lifelong fight" gives him or her a plausible (but utterly false) reason for acts that are utterly despicable on the basis that they can do no good, make no relationships, and can only cause harm, destruction and alienation.
Historical or current grudges are a fertile soil for terrorism, but not a justification for it- because the means invalidates any end it might claim to want to achieve. That terrorism can only cause harm is one of the main messages of this book. Terrorists need to personify their enemies as different, undesirable and other from them. The truth is we are all human, and we all bleed like each other. Burleigh's point that all terrorist victims are people merely wanting to go about their daily business and relate well to other people is well made.
The ability of states to contort their best values (freedom of speech, liberty of assembly, tolerance for others of different backgrounds or opinions) to accommodate terrorists is well described. The role of some lawyers in achieving this is well described. Law, and the uses to which it is used, and to which it is not enforced tell us a lot about the values in our societies. In the UK our libel laws, "Londonistan", and our reluctance to deport certain people are our contributions to enabling terrorism.
This book is powerful, and useful reading. We are all potentially terrorist targets, as we are all "decadent" in some way or other. This book should encourage us that terrorism is a problem that is ultimately sortable, and exposes well the emptiness of purported justifications of it.
I can recommend it to others.
 looking at terrorism's history - and its present June 24, 2009
Les Fearns (UK)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
It is soon clear that there is nothing new in our current preoccupation with bombings, even suicide bombings, and acts of political or religious terror. Burleigh starts with the Irish Fenians of the 19th century (bomb factories, innocent deaths, deaths of bombers, pre-emptive arrests and "hard" questioning by the authorities - it was all there in the past too ) then progresses (regresses?) through Russian bombers, anarchists onto the 20th century terrorist groups: Israeli, Palestinian, Irish, Basque, the European Red Brigades. The final (largest) section encompasses contemporary Islamist terror groups.
Some is done well. Burleigh is best on the more focused sections where he can follow a linear history: Fenians, Basques & Israeli terrorism as well as the final section on contemporary Islamist terror movements. Elsewhere (anarchism especially) exposition is at times over complex and confusing. I felt even a timeline would cope better with the huge amount of chronology and undeveloped personalities and events offered. Perhaps its scope is over ambitious. It may have been better to break it down into a couple of volumes (and so also include the latin American movements of the 1970's: tightly linked in many ways to the Red Brigades/RAF but a curious and large omission, even if admitted to by the author in the introduction).
At its best this a very good survey despite being openly opinionated, (increasingly so as chapters near the present). It could also do without the authors own explicit "solutions" at the end - many of these are certainly valid but are largely implicitly clear to the perceptive reader and do not require reinforcement. Perhaps more for research and dipping into rather than reading from cover to cover, this remains a valid and accessible addition to the topic.
Not His Best March 29, 2009
Athanasius (NYC)
5 out of 15 found this review helpful
I don't know if it's appropriate to use the word "fan" when referring to a historian. But, to heck with it.... I'm a huge fan of Michael Burleigh. I consider him to be among the best of the current crop of historians; indeed, among the best ever. In addition to being phenomenally intelligent and witty, he's an outstanding scholar and writer. He's also a very astute analyst of the underlying causes of Western Civilization's collapse. I'm always enlightened and riveted when reading him, and I was equally so when reading "Blood and Rage". You cannot and will not read a more incisive and comprehensive book on the subject of terrorists. Burleigh brings it home how extraordinarily vile terrorists are; how they at least disrupt and often wreck the lives of the innocent. Strip away all their bombastic claptrap and the reason is always the same -- the most bestial bloodlust. Terrorists are thugs -- no more, no less.
That being said, Burleigh is a bit too comprehensive in this case; there's just too much detail. With all due respect to Burleigh, I'm just not crazy about the everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-[insert topic here].... And-then-some approach.
Still, Burleigh is always worth reading, and that's one rule sans exception.
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