Political Terrorism

While there is no easy way to define terrorism, it may generally be viewed as a method of violence in which civilians are targeted with the objective of forcing a perceived enemy into submission by creating fear, demoralization, and political friction in the population under attack. At one time a marginal field of study in the social sciences, terrorism is now very much in center stage. The 1970s terrorist attacks by the PLO, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Japanese Red Army, the Unabomber, Aum Shinrikyo, Timothy McVeigh, the World Trade Center attacks, the assault on a school in Russia, and suicide bombers have all made the term "terrorism" an all-too-common part of our vocabulary.

This edition of Political Terrorism was originally published in the 1980s, well before some of the horrific events noted above. This monumental collection of definitions, conceptual frameworks, paradigmatic formulations, and bibliographic sources is being reissued in paperback now as a resource for the expanding community of researchers on the subject of terrorism. This is a carefully constructed guide to one of the most urgent issues of the world today.

When the first edition was originally published, Choice noted, "This extremely useful reference tool should be part of any serious social science collection." Chronicles of Culture called it "a tremendously comprehensive book about a subject that any who have anything to lose—from property to liberty, life to limbs—should be forewarned against." Alex P. Schmid received his Ph.D. from the University of Z³rich, Switzerland, and is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Leiden University. He is the coauthor, with Albert J. Jongman, of Soviet Military Interventions since 1945, available from Transaction. Albert J. Jongman is principal researcher for PIOOM, the Interdisciplinary Research Programme on Causes of Human Rights Violations, and has been a research assistant at the SIPRI in Sweden. He is the author of Monitoring Human Rights Violations (State Violence, State Terrorism, and Human Rights). Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University, and the chairman and editorial director of Transaction Publishers.

Once a marginal field of study in the social sciences, terrorism is now very much in center stage. The 1970s terrorist attacks by the PLO, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Japanese Red Army, the Unabomber, Aum Shinrikyo, Timothy McVeigh, the World Trade Center attacks, the assault on a school in Russia, and suicide bombers have all made the term "terrorism" an all-too-common part of our vocabulary. Political Terrorism, newly updated, is a carefully constructed guide to one of the most urgent issues of the world today.

Alex P. Schmid is senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Conflicts (COMT), State University of Leiden, The Netherlands. His earlier works include Intervention and Counterrevolution in the Russian Civil War, 1918-20, and Political Terrorism: A Research Guide to Concepts, Theories, Data Bases, and Literature.

Irving Louis Horowitz (1929-2012) was Hannah Arendt distinguished university professor emeritus of sociology and political science at Rutgers University. He served as chairman of the board and editorial director of Transaction Publishers. A prolific writer, he authored more than fifty books as well as hundreds of articles and essays.