Enemies of Humanity: The Nineteenth-Century War on Terrorism

This collection of essays analyzes wars on terrorism as a form of counter-revolution, involving innovations in policing, journalism, and intelligence gathering. It offers a fresh perspective on the definition and origins of terrorism, while broadening the field to include slave revolts and urban tensions. Rather than dating modern terrorism from the invention of dynamite, this collection considers how the "war on terrorism" had already matured by 1870 as a way to justify often bloody campaigns against labor unions, nationalist freedom fighters, and reformers of all kinds, while discrediting anyone who proposed some form of compromise with these "enemies of humanity."