Although this is a book about terrorism, Jason Burke tries to avoid the noun ‘terrorist’. This is not because he flinches from describing the effects of hijackings and bombings, but because he thinks it a mistake to lump the perpetrators of such crimes together with a single term. The book ranges quite widely – taking the story back into the 1960s as well as into the 1980s and the early career of Osama bin Laden. Within this time frame, there has been a marked shift. At first terrorism was predominantly committed by secular, left-leaning groups; by the end of the period, religion was the most common driving force. Burke’s interest is in understanding motives and examining the context in which people turned to violence. 

The book begins with Leila Khaled. She was born in 1944 in what was then Palestine, but her family were driven into Lebanon when the State of Israel was established. She joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and helped hijack a TWA plane from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1969. The plane landed in Damascus (Khaled insisted on a detour so that she could catch a glimpse of her native Haifa). The hijackers