Although terrorism seems a relatively modern phenomenon, novelist and military historian Caleb Carr illustrates
that it has been a constant of military history. In ancient times, warring armies raped and slaughtered civilians
and gratuitously destroyed homes and cities; in the Middle Ages, evangelical Muslims and Christian crusaders spread
their faiths by the sword; and in the early modern era, such celebrated kings as Louis XIV victimized noncombatants
for political purposes.
During the Civil War Americans first engaged in "Total war," the most egregious of the many euphemisms
for the tactics of terror. The forces of the South tried to systematize this horrifying practice; but it fell to
a Union general, William Tecumseh Sherman, to achieve that dubious goal. Carr recounts Sherman's declaration of
war on every man, woman, and child in the South -- a policy that brought long-term unrest tot he American South
by giving birth to the Ku Klux Klan.
Carr's exploration of terror reveals its consistently self-defeating nature. Far from prompting submission, Carr
argues, terrorism stiffens enemy resolve: for this reason above all, terrorism has never achieved -- not will it
ever achieve -- long-term success, however physically destructive and psychologically debilitating it may become.
With commanding authority and the storyteller's gift for which he is renowned, Caleb Carr provides a critical historical
context for understanding terrorist acts today, arguing that terrorism will be eradicated only when it is perceived
as a tactic that brings nothing save defeat to its agents.
Table of Contents
Prologue
1. A Catastrophe, Not A Cure
2. Dulce Bellum Inexpertis
3. Industry and Cunning
4. Covenants Without the Sword
5. Honor Has No Effect on Them
6. To Preach Hatred
7. Violence to Its Utmost Bounds
8. Fascinated by Terror
9. This Fundamentally Repugnant Philosophy
10. Shake Hands with Murder
Epilogue: Profit or Preservation?
Selected Bibliography: General Sources
Index