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The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to AI Qaeda, edited by Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin, is a worthy contribution to the literature on sub-national terrorist activity. Cast as a volume about the use of terrorism over the centuries, it contains a wealth of information in its numerous individual chapters covering subjects ranging from the first century Zealots, to anarchist groups of the 19th century, to the history of suicide operations. Especially important contributions include a revised version of Ariel Merari s seminal paper," Ter-rorism as a Strategy of Insurgency" and essays by Chaliand and Blin on the numerous manifestations of terrorism throughout history and on the" mod-ern'history of terrorism from 1968 to the present. Yet The History of Terrorism is more than a collection of essays on significant periods in the long history of terrorist activity. The books real goal is to place the modern threat posed by al Qaeda and …