Terrorism: How to Respond Hardcover – 2 Jul 2009

Review

Richard English is the author of outstanding histories of the IRA and Irish nationalism. Thoughtful scholarship lies at the heart of this fine analysis of terrorism as both a military and a political problem...In exploring this huge subject, English makes many telling points...while using history to console us with the thought that many terrorist movements eventually atrophy, provided societies have the resilience to see them out. (Michael Burleigh, Literary Review)

The clearest thinking on this scourge to have come along in many years. (John Arquilla, Foreign Policy)

If you want to read one book which explains the phenomenon of terrorism, gives you a good historical grasp of the subject while also providing a dispassionate roadmap to guide you thrpugh the term's complex meanderings and its many intellectual cul-de-sacs, then this is the book for you. It is outstanding: short and beautifully written, it manages also to be thoroughly on top of its subject. (Conor Gearty, Irish Times)

This is a very fine book. It is elegant and persuasively argued from a man who really does know what he is talking about. The long view of Richard English is vital in an age of the knee-jerk. (Fergal Keane, BBC Special Correspondant)

thoughtful, informed meditation on the state of terrorism research. (Lawrence Freedman, Foreign Affairs)

English negotiates a sophisticated path through the questions of definition and explanation that have long dominated this field...[The book] retains a credibility and persuasiveness lacked by many of its competitors [and] advances our understanding of terrorism, its costs and its consequences considerablu. (International Affairs)

a useful and accessible text for scholars and policymakers alike...English's book brings much needed attention to the state and the central role it plays in sustaining and ending terrorism...[it] explores both the analytical and practical problems associated with terrorism. (Terrorism and Political Violence)

This is a very sensible, well-written and well-reasoned book, based not only on the author's own area of expertise but also on wide reading in the literature...Almost uniquely among those who write about terrorism, he has done many years of archival and textual research, talked to many people described as "terrorists", and lived in a city where campaigns of violence were actually being waged. (Critical Studies on Terrorism)

a sober corrective to some dangerous recent misconceptions (Prospect)

a thought-provoking primer for politicians seeking something to stimulate them. (The American Conservative)

provocative...controversial. (Publishers Weekly)

Richard English is an academic at Queen's Universiy, Belfast who has been studying terror, and especially for the IRA, for serveral decades///western governments continue to need constant admonitions, such as English provides, to adopt proportionate rather than draconian responses. Max Hastings, Sunday Times

Review

"If you want to read one book which explains the phenomenon of terrorism...then this is the book for you."