Terrorism and War: Unconscious Dynamics of Political Violence

Following the attacks of September 11th 2001, one of the resounding questions asked was "What would make anyone do such a thing?" The psychological mentality of the suicidal terrorist left a gaping hole in people's understanding. This essential volume represents a much-needed effort to collate and examine some of the material already at our disposal as an encouragement to serious thought on this question and other related questions.'If terrorism is not new, what is it about the recent attacks that gives us a sense that something has changed? Is it the scale of the destruction, or the anxiety that we are facing some altogether new uncertainty? Are we in some sense facing a new enemy? ...In reflecting on these and other related questions we may be facing a similar watershed of understanding to that faced by Freud at the end of the Great War...In the absence of progress in our thinking today, political leaders and public opinion will likely turn to previous political and religious ideas, investing in them with a fundamentalist certainty that spells disaster.