Customer Reviews

Terrorism

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Terrorism offers a glossary of countries, groups, people, and weapons used by terrorist groups today. As a reference book it comes in handy and some of the info is good, but check up on anything ya find, cause ALOT of the material is inaccurate. Much of the weapons info is totally off base. It even lists the G11 as a weapon in modern terrorism.
Nevertheless, it is a good source for a broad overview of terrorism in todays society. If ya dont know anything about the subject and want some basic info, get the book. But if ya want really accurate info, go somewhere else.

Terrorism by John Pynchon Holms and Tom Burke is useful to only two groups: readers who know absolutely nothing about the subject, and those familiar with the topic who need a quick index. The former group will get a shallow but broad introduction to terrorism, the latter a reader-friendly glossary of names, terms, and dates.

As an aside, this book originally was published in 1994. After September 11, 2001, in another egregious example of exploitation of the tragedy, the opening chapter was revised and dedicated to the terrorist attacks on Washington, New York and over the skies of Pennsylvania. The September 11th timeline, like the book as whole, is a comprehensive but contains nothing new.

(...) I easily found an entry for Osama bin Laden on page110, al-Qaeda on page 126, and also noted that the 911 attacks were covered in detail in the beginning of the book on pages 8-16. If you're looking for a straight forward introduction to terrorism and terrorists give this one a try.