Assassination [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Miles Hudson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 2000

Analyzes the history of political assassination, based upon examples ranging from Julius Caesar to Yitzhak Rabin. It asks the question: does political assassination change the course of history? The examples he cites are all chosen because of a definite political imperative, whether good or bad.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Does the violent elimination of one man necessarily change the course of history? For example, did the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand cause World War I or did it merely speed up an inevitable explosion? Hudson, former political secretary of the British foreign service office, uses a survey of political assassinations over two millennia to examine this question. He is concerned here only with those assassinations in which the motives were strictly political, so some of the more interesting and perhaps mysterious murders are not included. Still, Hudson examines an eclectic mix of rogues, from the obvious (John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators) to the relatively obscure (the four knights who murdered Thomas aBecket in Canterbury Cathedral). He concludes that assassinations cannot change the general direction of history, but they can speed up or retard historical tides and perhaps even stimulate movement where an unstable inertia prevails. Although some of his interpretations of facts are problematic, Hudson has provided a thoughtful and stimulating look at an old question. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews

Does the killing of kings and religious leaders do anyone any good? British historian Hudson (War and the Media, not reviewed) looks at 18 famous cases and finds that only one might have accomplished the killer's goals.Some might object when Hudson adds Jesus Christ onto a list that includes Julius Caesar, Malcolm X, Thomas à Becket, Marat, and Rasputin. Others might ask why Abraham Lincoln is the only US president among the murdered elected leaders (like Gandhi, Yitzhak Rabin, and South Africa's Hendrick Verwoerd) who, Hudson feels, might have changed their nations for the better had they died of natural causes. And why consider luckless victims like Archduke Franz Ferdinand (whose killing started WWI) and Lord Frederick Cavendish (knocked off by the IRA), who, like so many modern terrorist targets, were killed because they happened to be easy prey? It seems that in studying the phenomenology of assassination, Hudson is after bigger game. In his clear, accessibly argued monograph, he builds on the ideas of American sociologist Alfred Hirschman, who wrote off assassinations as a fool's errand that can bring on only one of three outcomes: a backlash that reverses what the killers may have hoped to accomplish (Christ, Caesar, Lincoln), unforeseen calamities that make things worse for everyone (Archduke Ferdinand, Czar Nicholas II, Michael Collins), or a failure to alter whatever social conditions inspired the killing (Rasputin, Marat, Rabin). Hudson finds only one exception: Stalin's killing of Leon Trotsky, which he believes reinforced Stalin's reputation as a ruthlessly powerful global dictator. Lurking behind Hudson's study is the big question of the extent to which individuals influence the fate of nations. His carefully qualified answer: not much. Though Hudson's choice of cases prefigures his conclusions, his evidence is incisive enough to challenge, if not disarm, the ill-informed hatemongering of those who advocate the killing of public leaders. (30 b&w illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 267 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Publishing; illustrated edition edition (May 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750919663
• ISBN-13: 978-0750919661
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,601,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars IS ASSASSINATION EFFECTIVE?, June 17, 2007

By 

Severin Olson (Hyattsville, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Assassination (Paperback)

Miles Hudson looks at eighteen assassinations of history, including Ceasar, Collins, Martin King, Gandhi, Sadat, and Lincoln, just to name a few. All are useful inclusions except Jesus Christ, who was really not assassinated and doesn't belong here (we learn little about him in any case). The author examines each with an eye to how effective they were in fulfilling the goals of the assassin. Interestingly, he concludes that only Trotsky's killing could be called a success in this regard. All the others were failures. Readers will want to explore the conclusion to see how Hudson scores the murders on his scale.



While excellent, I gave this four stars instead of five because so little is said about the assassinations themselves or the assassins. What allowed the killings to be successful? What mistakes were made? Why did the assassins carry out the job? The book is mostly silent here, focusing on the lives and times of the murdered. We are not even told that the Russian Czar was killed by one of Lenin's brothers! But I would still recommend this work to all interested in the history of great men and villians