Review: The No-Nonsense Guide to Terrorism
| Author | Lee-Anne Broadhead |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800321 |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
authority.
Narine
is
not
optimistic
that
this
will
change.
He
thinks
efforts
to reform
the organization
are
"doomed to
failure" (p
4)
and
warns
that,
as
an
active
and meaningful
international
institution,
ASEAN
"is
at
risk
of
fading
into
irrelevance"
(p
208).
While
Narine
arguably
underestimates
ASEAN's
capacity for
evolu-
tion,
he marshals
a
solid
body
of
evidence
to
support
an
even-handed
and
perceptive
critique
of
the
organization's
recent
performance.
The
book
provides
a
useful
tonic
to
some
of
the
more
exuberant
claims
made
about
Asia-Pacific
institutions, and
it
is
most
useful
in
its
analy-
sis
of
the
period
since
the
economic
crisis.
Although
it
was
written
before
all
the
consequences
of
9/11
became
fully
apparent,
the
author's
argument
is
largely
supported
by
ASEAN's
patchy
response
to
the
War
on
Terrorism.
Explaining
ASEAV
is
a
welcome
addition
to
the
growing
literature
on
regionalism
in
Southeast
Asia.
David
Capie/Centre
of
International
Relations,
University
of
British
Columbia
THE
NO-NONSENSE
GUIDE
TO
TERRORISM
Jonathan
Barker
Toronto:
New
Internationalist
Publications and
Between
the
Lines,
2003,
144
pp,
$15.00,
ISBN
1-896357-75-x
I
loved
reading this
book! I
enjoyed
virtually
every
page
and
want
everyone (especially
Junior
Bush
and
his
colleagues
in
the Oval
Office)
to
buy
and
read
it.
I
have
never
begun
a
book
review
with
such
an
unqualified
state-
ment
of
total
admiration,
but,
in
this
case,
I
have
no
other
option.
Barker
has
taken
a
very
difficult topic
and, in
just
144
pages,
placed
the
current
preoccupation
with
terrorism
into
historical
context
and
packed
it
with
both
detail
and
analysis-quite
an
accomplishment.
Barker
follows
Boaz
Ganor's
argument
in
dispensing
with
the
oft-
cited
dictum
that
"one
person's
terrorist
is
another
person's
freedom
fighter."
In
its
place,
he
puts
forward
the
perfectly
logical
argument
that,
if
we
concentrate
on
the
means used
and
leave
aside
the
political
goals,
a
definition
of
terrorism
is
perfectly
easy
to
construct.
The
definition
need
not
be
bogged
down
in questions
of
whether
or
not
we
agree
with
the
political
goal
espoused,
we
need
only look at
whether
or
not
the
violence
is
used
(or threatened)
against
civilians
in order to
reach
political
goals.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL Summer 2003
473
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