Political Murder
From Tyrannicide to Terrorism
Published on 1. January 1987
Book
Paperback/Softback
456 pages
978-0-674-68636-6 (ISBN)
Description
Franklin Ford's unprecedented inquiry into assassination traverses civilizations, cultures, religions, and modes of social behavior to locate the common threads of this often mysterious and always shocking phenomenon.
Are there similarities between the killings of the Gracchi brothers and the Kennedy brothers? Does the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang have roots in the rightist murder teams of Weimar Germany? Was political context as important to the crucifixion of Jesus as to the death of Martin Luther King in 1968? Are political murders usually produced by elaborate conspiracies, or are they more often the work of lone assassins? What circumstances and impulses motivate an individual to risk his or her own life to kill another for reasons of state? This fast-paced narrative, interspersed with reflections, finds intriguing implications in a multitude of famous cases.
From the first known case of political murder, Ehud the Benjamite's stabbing of Eglon, to the recent gunning down of Indira Gandhi by two trusted Sikh bodyguards, the frequency of such acts has varied greatly over time. Mainland Greece suffered few political murders in the violent century of Pericles. The Romans, despite their bloody record under the Empire, avoided assassination for almost four hundred years under the Republic. There was a third such "remission" during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Europe's high Middle Ages, matched by yet another extending from 1650 to 1789. In the interval between, the sixteenth century was an especially violent time in countries such as Scotland, the Netherlands, and France. Assassination and terrorism increased again after 1815, but the nineteenth century did not come close to equaling the twentieth in the number of brutal episodes.
Ford's exploration of calculated, personalized assassination draws on history, literature, law, philosophy, sociology, and religion. Addressing the vast array of cases and combing thousands of years of history, he asks most of all whether assassination works. Does it, in even a minority of cases, produce results consistent with the aims of those who attempt it? Can it forestall evil acts or prevent irreparable damage inflicted by misguided leaders? Or is it "bad politics" in every sense of the term? The questions are large ones, and this book offers a sophisticated basis for seeking answers.
Are there similarities between the killings of the Gracchi brothers and the Kennedy brothers? Does the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang have roots in the rightist murder teams of Weimar Germany? Was political context as important to the crucifixion of Jesus as to the death of Martin Luther King in 1968? Are political murders usually produced by elaborate conspiracies, or are they more often the work of lone assassins? What circumstances and impulses motivate an individual to risk his or her own life to kill another for reasons of state? This fast-paced narrative, interspersed with reflections, finds intriguing implications in a multitude of famous cases.
From the first known case of political murder, Ehud the Benjamite's stabbing of Eglon, to the recent gunning down of Indira Gandhi by two trusted Sikh bodyguards, the frequency of such acts has varied greatly over time. Mainland Greece suffered few political murders in the violent century of Pericles. The Romans, despite their bloody record under the Empire, avoided assassination for almost four hundred years under the Republic. There was a third such "remission" during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Europe's high Middle Ages, matched by yet another extending from 1650 to 1789. In the interval between, the sixteenth century was an especially violent time in countries such as Scotland, the Netherlands, and France. Assassination and terrorism increased again after 1815, but the nineteenth century did not come close to equaling the twentieth in the number of brutal episodes.
Ford's exploration of calculated, personalized assassination draws on history, literature, law, philosophy, sociology, and religion. Addressing the vast array of cases and combing thousands of years of history, he asks most of all whether assassination works. Does it, in even a minority of cases, produce results consistent with the aims of those who attempt it? Can it forestall evil acts or prevent irreparable damage inflicted by misguided leaders? Or is it "bad politics" in every sense of the term? The questions are large ones, and this book offers a sophisticated basis for seeking answers.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Weight
499 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-68636-6 (9780674686366)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Introduction PART ONE: THE LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY 1. Jehovah's Children and His Enemies The Bible as Source In the Days of the Judges The Life and Times of Joab Division and Fall of the Monarchy Governance under the Lord 2. The Greeks Darkness and Light in Hellas The Strange Case of Athens Colonial Tyrants: Phalaris of Acragas Dionysius and Dion of Syracuse Tyrannies North and East The Macedonia Adventure The Birth of Tyrannicide Theory 3. Rome A Republic of Laws The Gracchi Pompey, Caesar, Cicero The Empire as Epilogue What the Romans Showed 4. Other Peoples, Other Lands Reports from the Neighbors Rival Powers Greater Asia: The Sins of Devadatta Continents Known and Unknown 5. Zealots, Barbarians, and Assassins A Time of Transition Palestine and the Roman Imperium German Invaders and Their Ways Islam: Victories and Divisions Ismailis and the Hashishiyyin PART TWO: THE EUROPEAN CENTURIES 6. The High Middle Ages Causes and Limits of Change Kings, Lords, and Churchmen Murder at Canterbury Some Early Christian Views Two Schoolmen on Tyrannicide 7. A New Age of Princes English Dynasts Fifteenth-Century France Renaissance Italy From Polemics to Analysis: Guicciardini Machiavelli 8. Religious Warfare and Reason of State A Century of Bloodshed The Monarchomachs Coligny and William the Silent The Queen in Danger? Henry of Navarre Wallenstein Trial and Punishment 9. The Early Modern Interlude The Dog That Did Not Bark in the Night Signs of Revulsion Some Likely Victims Spared Remnants of Violence The Eighteenth Century Revolution in France The End of the Remission 10. The Nineteenth Century An Old, but Widening Stage The Kotzebue Killing Orsini in Paris, 1858 The Tsar and "The People's Will" Phoenix Park PART THREE: THE MODERN WORLD 11. Civilization in the Balance Before 1914 The First World War Russian Shambles The "Terrible Twenties": Two Ends of Europe Weimar Germany The 1930s: Terror and the State The Thirties: Russia and Germany 12. World War II and After Some Noteworthy Victims Heydrich, Darlan, and the Resistance "The Fuhrer Must Go!" Settling Accounts Different Battles on Changing Lines 13. Recent Times Mass and Location Independence and Nationhood The New Nihilists Historic Targets: Schleyer, Moro, and the Pope Post-Colonial Crises Africa Enters the Arena The Middle East 14. The Americas: Latin, British, and French Where Does the "New World" Fit? "English Islands" Canada--and Quebec 15. The United States "Conceived and Born in Violence"? The Watershed of the Civil War Madmen or Zealots? Centers of Controversy: Weiss, Oswald, and Ray Official Connections Conclusion: Looking Backward and Forward Notes Index