Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources

Terrorism provides insight into the scale and complexities of terrorism across a sweeping landscape of time, geography, act, and motive. Included are approximately 175 full or excerpted documents---speeches, legislation, magazine and newspaper articles, essays, memoirs, letters, interviews, novels, songs, and works of art---as well as overview information that places each document in context. Entries are organized into chapters that feature a general overview of the chapters subtopic. The following standard subheads are included in each entry:

• Date
• Source
• About the Author
• Introduction
• Primary Source
• Significance
• Further Resources

All titles contain an introduction to its topic, a chronology of major events associated with the topic, and a general index.

While Gale strives to replicate print content, some content may not be available due to rights restrictions.

This title is one of a planned 10-book Social Issues Primary Resources Collection covering topics such as human rights, crime, health, gender, immigration, and family. Each volume will showcase 175 primary sources including speeches, legislation, letters, magazine articles, songs, photos, and pictures. Typical examples of the sources chosen for inclusion in Terrorism are "The Case against the Reds," "Letter from Timothy McVeigh," "TWA Flight 847 Hijacking," "Eulogy for Yitzhak Rabin," "How Did Eric Rudolph Survive?" and "USA PATRIOT Act." Sources are arranged in thematic chapters such as "Insurgent f Terrorism," "Religious Terrorism," and "Counterterrorism."

Each primary source is the main focus of its entry. Particularly valuable is the way each source is framed by consistently formatted information: full citation, key facts, historical introduction, historical significance, and a list of further-reading materials. Excluding the primary source itself, entries are from one to three pages in length. The "Advisors and Contributors" section lists scholars, journalists, and researchers. However, as the editors explain, "Because they are actively working in criminal investigations or other sensitive areas, some advisors and contributors requested the release of a minimum of personal and/or affiliation information." Therefore, the names of some contributors are followed by very minimal credentials.

For any library serving secondary-school and undergraduate researchers, Terrorism is worth a serious look. It packs an impressive selection of primary source material, both in terms of subject coverage and format, into a very user-friendly template. However, it's important to keep in mind that, for advanced researchers, using a preselected set of primary sources defeats, to some extent, the purpose of primary source research. Understandably, the editors had to make strict secondary source-type decisions about which specific sources to include and which to exclude. Art A. Lichtenstein
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