Claire Sterling's The Terror Network and Edward Herman's The Real Terror Network are reviewed and reactions to the authors' research and subject matter in the scholarly and popular press compared. It is ar gued that Sterling's work suffers from sloppy argument and questionable evidence and a lack of apprecia tion of the interaction between politics and history. Herman's work, an avowedly polemical piece, deserves far more attention that it has thus far received despite some shortcomings in the analysis which at times seem to confuse structural arguments with conspiracy. Both works point to the need to further explore the role of the state in the terror process.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Arendt, Hannah1958, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Meridian : Cleveland.
2.
Beres, L.R.Apocalypse, 1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3.
Blechman, Barry and Kaplan, Stephen, 1976. Force Without War, Washington : Brookings Institute.
4.
Bonante, Luigi, 1976, Some Unanticipated Consequences of Terrorism, Journal of Peace Research, vol. xvi. no. 3, 197-211.
5.
Burton, John, 1969. Conflict and Communication, London : Macmillan.
6.
Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward, 1979. The Political Economy of Human Rights, Volume 1, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Volume 2, After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, Boston: South End Press.
7.
Demaris, Ovid, 1977. Brothers in Blood, New York.
8.
Herman, Edward, 1982. The Real Terror Network, Boston : South End Press. 255 pp.
9.
Haig, Alexander, News Conference, Jan. 28, 1981. Current Policy No. 258, U.S. Department of State, p. 5.
10.
Horner, Charles, 1980. The Facts About TerrorismCommentary , vol. 69, no. 6 (June), pp. 40-45.
11.
Kaplan, Stephen, 1981. The Diplomacy of Power, Washington : Brookings Institute.
12.
Kuper, Leo, 1981. Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century , New Haven: Yale University Press .
13.
Kupperman, Robert and Trent, Darrell, 1979. Terrorism: Threat, Reality, Response, Stanford: Hooser Institution Press.
14.
Leitenberg, Milton, 1980. Threats of the Use of Nuclear Weapons Since World War II. In Asbjorri Eide and Marek Thee (eds.), Problems of Contemporary Militarism, New York: St. Martins .
15.
Miller, Judith, 1981. "Soviet aid Disputed in Terrorism, Study," The New York Times, March 29.
16.
O'Brien Conor Cruise, 1981. The Roots of Terrorism, The New Republic , July 23.
17.
Pear, Robert, 1981. 'F.B.I Chief Sees No Evidence Soviet Aids Terrorism in U.S.," New York Times, April 27.
18.
Schelling, Thomas, 1982. Thinking About Nuclear Terrorism, 1982. International Security, Vol. 6, pp. 61-77.
19.
Sterling, Claire, 1981. The Terror Network, New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 357 pp.
20.
Stohl, Michael, 1983. "International Dimensions of State Terrorism," in M. Stohl and G. Lopez (eds.) The State As Terrorist, Greenwood, forthcoming.
21.
Stohl, Michael, 1982. "National Interests and State Terrorism,"paper presented to the Southwestern Social Science Association, March, 1982, San Antonio, Texas.
22.
Wright, Steve, 1978. New Police Technologies, Journal of Peace Research, vol. xv, no. 4, 305-322.
