Gentlemanly Terrorists

Durba Ghosh uncovers the critical place of revolutionary terrorism in the colonial and postcolonial history of modern India.

Using India as a case study, Joseph McQuade traces the genealogy of the political and legal category of terrorism. He demonstrates how the modern concept of terrorism was shaped by colonial emergency laws dating back into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Study of conjugal relationships between Indian women and British men in colonial India.

Political speeches and public rhetoric paint the phenomena of terrorism with a black-and-white brush, presenting it as a clear-cut battle between evildoers and heroes. With The Achille Lauro Hijacking, Michael K. Bohn, who watched the incident unfold from the White House Situation Room, uses one of the most infamous terrorist incidents of the past twenty-five years to illuminate the folly of such oversimplified jingoisms. The 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, the amazing capture of the terrorists, and a previously untold story of American bigotry come together in this book as a case study in the complex forces that shape both terrorism and the responses that it triggers. In October 1985, four Palestinian men hijacked an Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro, holding hundreds hostage for two days. The hijackers killed a partially disabled, sixty-nine year old Jewish American, Leon Klinghoffer, and threw his body into the sea. Many remember Klinghofferas death, but few know of the other murder associated with the hijacking, that of Alex Odeh. Odeh defended on television Yasser Arafatas apparent role in defusing the hijacking. He was killed the next day by a terroristas bomb, which exploded as he opened the door of his Los Angeles office - the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Palestinians killed Klinghoffer because he was Jewish, yet Jewish extremists killed Odeh because he was a Palestinian. The Klinghoffer familyas long crusade to bring the hijacking mastermind, Abu Abbas, to justice was partially satisfied with his April 2003 capture in Iraq. The Odeh family still waits for charges to be brought against Alexas murderers, a particularly disheartening situation as Israel, Americaas friend and ally, refuses to extradite two suspects. These two deaths pale in comparison to the atrocities of September 11, 2001. Yet understanding both the Achille Lauro incident, and the extraordinary sequence of events that followed, will help Americans better understand the threat of terrorism. Terrorism is not an enemy, it is a tactic chosen by some to further political goals. Terrorism is not just about crime and punishment; it is about violence, power politics, prejudice, hatred, land, religion, greed, money, and a host of venal factors that influence human society. All of these forces are present in the Achille Lauro hijacking and its aftermath."

In this groundbreaking book, Ilham Khuri-Makdisi establishes the existence of a special radical trajectory spanning four continents and linking Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria between 1860 and 1914. She shows that socialist and anarchist ideas were regularly discussed, disseminated, and reworked among intellectuals, workers, dramatists, Egyptians, Ottoman Syrians, ethnic Italians, Greeks, and many others in these cities. In situating the Middle East within the context of world history, Khuri-Makdisi challenges nationalist and elite narratives of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history as well as Eurocentric ideas about global radical movements. The book demonstrates that these radical trajectories played a fundamental role in shaping societies throughout the world and offers a powerful rethinking of Ottoman intellectual and social history.

In the years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, journalists, commentators, and others have published accounts of the Bush Administration's war on terrorism. But no senior Pentagon official has offered an inside view of those years, or has challenged the prevailing narrative of that war—until now. Douglas J. Feith, the head of the Pentagon's Policy organization, was a key member of Donald Rumsfeld's inner circle as the Administration weighed how to protect the nation from another 9/11. In War and Decision, he puts readers in the room with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, General Tommy Franks, and other key players as the Administration devised its strategy and war plans. Drawing on thousands of previously undisclosed documents, notes, and other written sources, Feith details how the Administration launched a global effort to attack and disrupt terrorist networks; how it decided to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime; how it came to impose an occupation on Iraq even though it had avoided one in Afghanistan; how some officials postponed or impeded important early steps that could have averted major problems in Iraq's post-Saddam period; and how the Administration's errors in war-related communications undermined the nation's credibility and put U.S. war efforts at risk. Even close followers of reporting on the Iraq war will be surprised at the new information Feith provides—presented here with balance and rigorous attention to detail. Among other revelations, War and Decision demonstrates that the most far-reaching warning of danger in Iraq was produced not by State or by the CIA, but by the Pentagon. It reveals the actual story behind the allegations that the Pentagon wanted to "anoint" Ahmad Chalabi as ruler of Iraq, and what really happened when the Pentagon challenged the CIA's work on the Iraq–al Qaida relationship. It offers the first accurate account of Iraq postwar planning—a topic widely misreported to date. And it presents surprising new portraits of Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Richard Armitage, L. Paul Bremer, and others—revealing how differences among them shaped U.S. policy. With its blend of vivid narrative, frank analysis, and elegant writing, War and Decision is like no other book on the Iraq war. It will interest those who have been troubled by conflicting accounts of the planning of the war, frustrated by the lack of firsthand insight into the decision-making process, or skeptical of conventional wisdom about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the global war on terrorism—efforts the author continues to support.

Now in paperback, “a compelling, accessible, and provocative piece of work that forces us to question many of our assumptions” (Gillian Tett, author of Fool’s Gold). Quants, physicists working on Wall Street as quantitative analysts, have been widely blamed for triggering financial crises with their complex mathematical models. Their formulas were meant to allow Wall Street to prosper without risk. But in this penetrating insider’s look at the recent economic collapse, Emanuel Derman—former head quant at Goldman Sachs—explains the collision between mathematical modeling and economics and what makes financial models so dangerous. Though such models imitate the style of physics and employ the language of mathematics, theories in physics aim for a description of reality—but in finance, models can shoot only for a very limited approximation of reality. Derman uses his firsthand experience in financial theory and practice to explain the complicated tangles that have paralyzed the economy. Models.Behaving.Badly. exposes Wall Street’s love affair with models, and shows us why nobody will ever be able to write a model that can encapsulate human behavior.

This book is an exploration of the rich, variegated, and intimate history of revolution as praxis.