Understanding Terror, Terrorism, and Their Representations in Media and Culture

This review article examines four recent books published on terrorism and insurgent warfare. It argues that the narrative developed from the early 1970s within terrorism studies or “terrorology” was considerably different from the discussion of terrorism in the post-1945 period and tended to marginalize the role of states in fomenting terror. The article looks at depictions of terrorism in both art and film as well the recent historiography of terrorism. The article argues that far more emphasis needs to be placed on the role of the French Revolution in the gestation of terrorism in the nineteenth century; by contrast the emphasis on late nineteenth century Russian terrorism has been rather exaggerated as many terrorist movement (such as that in 1880s Chicago) owed little to the Russian connection. Finally the article shows that the connection between terrorism and political nihilism has been overplayed and that few terrorist movements (as opposed to some terrorist theorists) were driven by a nihilist agenda.