Customer Reviews:
 Fear the Praetorians more than the Barbarians? June 25, 2008
Stewart Murray McRorie (London, UK)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Burleigh's book is raw, historical background which by volume would do credit to a good research assistant but, by value, needs editing and organisation. He chronicles a number of terrorist campaigns, deals with movements - the attention seekers - violent struggles in Spain and Ireland. He then considers Islamic terrorism. The trouble with raw data it is hard to digest.
In a book of too few conclusions, he points out that terrorism attracts the worst and the dullest, a way of making mundane lives meaningful, gaining notoriety. It can be exciting, for a while. That "the milieu of terrorists is morally squalid, when it is not merely criminal" often gullible and psychotic. Idealists usually are weaker than the criminals attracted to terrorist movements, Stalin not Trotsky became dictator of Russia. That is not telling us more than we know. There are recurring facts that show us nothing is new. Irish bombs on the London underground November 1883. That the was a near global panic that the anarchist Black International inspired in the late ninetieth and early twentieth century. There are lessons, overexpansion of tertiary education in Italy and Germany led half-educated adolescents to radicalism, some to terrorism.
A weakness of Burleigh's book is that he does not make the connection between terrorism and guerrilla warfare. Terrorism when suppoorting a guerrilla movement can be a potent mix, Israel at is formation, Algeria, Cuba, Vietnam. Terrorism, the abstract ideological sort, is a tragedy for the victims but poses no threat to the political, economic and social well-being of a nation. If Baader - Meinhof could not subvert Germany what real threat does Osama bin Laden present to the United States?
Freelance terrorism of bizarre men living in caves aside, post-war history shows state terrorism is much more efficient. Looking at the world as it is in 2008, it is not being anti American to point out that the CIA has been the world's best-funded and equipped organisation fermenting terrorism directly or by proxy. Globally American foreign policy deeply offends such large numbers of people that it is inevitable that it propels some - a tiny minority - to terrorism. I mention the United States because Burleigh avoids it and because it is the US that finds it launching a "global war on terror", which we all appear to take as seriously. Before the US confronts these radicals it needs to realise who actually radicalised them. An uncomfortable question if you think about it.
Burleigh goes nowhere in his Islamic chapter. Muslims are broadly opposed to Western policies but are a far from united, cohesive, force. While there are large Muslim communities in all Western countries, they are not likely to use terrorism to create guerrilla warfare and storm Western capitals. High population growth, access to a reasonable education and limited employment are the "fundamentalist "roots of discontent. Events covered so instantly on television in the West Bank, Iran, Afghanistan, the development of a victim mentality (here Burleigh makes a fair point) have radicalised many young Muslims who find religion. Terrorism is attractive to some, a few clever but many merely cannon fodder. It's amateurism not a potent movement.
Burleigh makes a plea for a more realistic approach to the threat, that terrorists should seen as a military threat not a criminal one. But has he missed the point? There is no danger to the West but that does not mean blood will not be spilled. What perhaps should really worry us are not those who threaten, but those who defend us. Since 9/11, there has been a staggering overreaction by the United States (and the UK). A vast infrastructure of competing organisations and people, who need to justify their existence by claiming our way of life is being threatened by global terrorism. No, it is not. In the liberal democracies, surveillance has increased on a massive scale, accompanied by the erosion of basic freedoms, and draconian legal powers acquired. History shows that if you give generals the weapons, they will make wars to use them. Is the "solution" more dangerous than the "problem"? Should we fear the Praetorians more than the Barbarians?
Readable but Lacking April 28, 2008
Brian Hostad (Lincolnshire, England)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Overall, I was disappointed with book. It is a potted history of several terrorist conflicts, unsurprisingly focusing on the most recents ones within the last 40 years. It gives very little insight into common themes between conflicts, why and how they occur, what sustains them and why they end. It touches on, but doesn't really explore the link and crossover between terrorism and criminality.
The only theme that comes through consistently is Burleigh's total contempt for terrorists and their idealology. This is done through acid one liners which show the moral bankcruptcy and double standards of the terrorist whenever they try and justify their actions. This is fine (though this does get tedious towrds the end) and I can't disagree with him, but it doesn't explain why terrorists will maintain community support (however passive) for their actions and so that they campaign for decades with a constant stream of recruits and funds.
Where Burleigh gets himself worked up into a ferment of rage and loathing is the last section on Islamic terrorism. In some ways it's one the better sections as it's more than just a quick run through of characters and terrorist atrocities (perhaps because the number of incidents has been smaller, although each has been on a much larger scale). Here for Burleigh the liberal lawmaking elite of the Western democracies (shameful left leaning lawyers, worthless asylum laws and benefit handouts for all, are consisted derided) and the poorly co-ordinated security services are almost as much to blame as radical islamic clerics. I feel that Burleigh really just wanted to write about this subject, but for whatever reason thought to expand it to a more general work on terrorism. One final gripe, tying into this, is his constant references to "Londonistan" all through the book. It's as though the final section was on his mind all the time he was writing.
To be fair though it is a good read that keeps up a decent pace, and can serve as good introduction to the terrorist conflicts it covers. For me, I found the part on the Red Brigades and the RAF particularly interesting having little knowledge about these conflicts prior to reading the book.
Overall, you won't be bored reading the book, and it might even get you thinking a little, but if you're expecting deep insight and analysis, you're best looking elsewhere.
 a brave and fearless analysis March 17, 2008
DT (Liverpool, UK)
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
I enjoyed, and felt educated by, this book. Unlike the previous reviewer I had not read any of the author's other work, and so remain uncontaminated by earlier facts and their possible recycling (unavoidable, perhaps, in a subject of this nature).
As a lawyer (albeit one who has never been instructed in a terrorist case) I found the comments about the legal profession somewhat tendentious and not a little odd. However I would not put anyone off reading this substantial and serious book for the many valuable insights it has provided.
 A disappointment March 14, 2008
Seamus Mcneill (Belfast)
7 out of 26 found this review helpful
Having enjoyed "The Third Reich" and "Sacred Causes", I was looking forward to this book. Sadly it did not live up to my expectations. It seemed to be a "pot-boiler" which recycled much of the information in "Sacred Causes". Too often it was a recital of terrorist acts with not enough analysis or insight. More worryingly, as a Northern Ireland resident, I was unhappy with factual inaccuracies on the "troubles" here which undermined my confidence in the information elsewhere in the book in areas with which I was less familiar.
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