Terrorism

Terrorism has become one of the central security concerns of our time, presenting governments and citizens alike with a variety of policy and public safety challenges. Yet the subject also presents intellectual and pedagogic challenges for those seeking to study and understand it. Adequately comprehending terrorism requires an inherently multi-disciplinary approach that often does not fit neatly into existing academic disciplines; even when taught through the lens of a particular discipline, such as criminology or political science, it is still necessary for students to engage with a broad array of concepts from behavioral science and humanities fields as diverse as psychology, history, economics, communications, and anthropology. Moreover, as a highly dynamic and protean phenomenon at the forefront of public policy, new concepts and concerns arise regularly, thus necessitating pedagogic materials that keep pace with the latest incarnations of terrorism. To cite just two pertinent examples, merely a decade ago, topics like "homegrown radicalization" and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) did not even exist in the academic or policy lexicon surrounding terrorism; furthermore, these topics, which today are central to understanding the terrorist threat, require knowledge and theories from psychology and chemistry, both of which are beyond the disciplines most commonly associated with terrorism studies, namely criminology, political science, international relations, and history. Unfortunately, extant texts for undergraduates in terrorism-related classes have not adequately met these challenges. First, the vast majority of current texts used in terrorism courses are not true textbooks (see detailed exposition below), but are rather edited volumes or in-depth narratives. With respect to terrorism studies, at least, these are less suitable as introductions for an undergraduate audience because they tend by their nature to focus on only limited aspects of what is a