Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature

Once a marginal field of study in the social sciences, terrorism is now very much in center stage. Terrorist attacks by the PLO, 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. A classic and relevant work, Political Terrorism is a carefully constructed guide to one of the most urgent issues of the world today. This encyclopedic volume gives the reader a unique guide to understanding and evaluating terrorism as part of the political process. This second edition has been completely revised and updated to include writing on terrorism of the 1980s. It will almost certainly remain the fundamental source for facts, theories, and histories of terrorism as event and ideology. Schmid and Jongman provide the basic definitions, conceptual frameworks, paradigmatic formulations, and bibliographic sources available on political terrorism. In addition, the Guide includes a complete bibliography on terrorism and a 1500-item directory of terrorist and guerilla organizations and other groups involved in political violence. Schmid also surveys current theories on the origins of terrorism, covering sociological, psychological, conspiratorial, and other explanations, and he assesses the accessibility and reliability of data on terrorism. Alex P. Schmid is a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Conflicts, University of Leiden, the Netherlands. His earlier works include Soviet Military Interventions Since 1945 and Intervention and Counterrevolution in the Russian Civil War.