Terrorism (Library in a Book)

The United States suffers very little from acts of terrorism compared with Europe and the developing world. In fact, an American citizen is more likely to be killed by lightning than by a terrorist attack. Nevertheless, fear of terrorism remains widespread. The U.S. government defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." The bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, which resulted in 168 deaths, is the worse incident of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. These are but a few insights provided in this one-volume reference, written by freelance writer Henderson (Privacy in the Information Age, 1999) as part of the publisher's "Library in a Book" series.