Customer Reviews

International Terrorism And American Foreign Relations, 1945-1976

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Given our current obsession with terrorism, this book's topic seems nearly prophetic. Even though there has been an explosion of literature on terrorism since 9/11, few scholars have looked fairly at the HISTORY of post-WWII terrorism. This book does this and does it well.

Although the book claims to cover American foreign policy from 45-76, in reality American actions are really the sideshow. Instead, this book covers 3 terrorist movements--those in Israel, Algeria, and Palestine--and finds important commonalities between them and how America has dealt with them. The main thesis is that the U.S. decided not to directly confront terrorism in the name of larger geopolitics (relations with Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, in particular). To me, this is fairly obvious. The real strength of this book, however, is its deep understanding of the discussed movements provided in a concise fashion. In fact, I can think of no better book that handles pre-1979 terrorism in a more succinct and analytical fashion.