How to Think About Terrorism: Reflections on Philosophy, History, and Politics
Sep 2026 · Oxford University Press
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What is terrorism? How do people become terrorists? To what extent can terrorism be considered rational? Quassim Cassam and Richard English tackle these vital questions in How to Think About Terrorism. How to Think About Terrorism transforms how we understand terrorism, through innovative engagement with philosophical ideas and arguments as they intersect with historical and political thinking. This book reflects on the vital question of definition, recognizing that a useful description of terrorism should be sufficiently flexible and open-ended to accommodate the great variety of terrorist methods, motives, objectives, perpetrators, and targets. Quassim Cassam and Richard English offer a philosophical (but empirically and historically grounded) account of the differences between non-state terrorism and state terrorism, and of the dynamics and nature of state terrorism itself. The authors address the question of how people become terrorists, combining in a Hybrid View the strengths of generalist and of particularist approaches; and offer a realist middle way between irrationalism and rationalism. How to Think About Terrorism offers a complex and historically nuanced account of the relationship between religion and terrorism, and reflects systematically on the extent to which terrorism can, in principle, be morally justified. In terms of counter-terrorism, this book argues that philosophical thinking about torture should focus on real rather than artificial scenarios; it also draws together its cumulative argument in an innovative assessment of the moral, political, and practical foundations for a range of counter-terrorist approaches, an analysis intended to be as practically relevant as it is analytically compelling.
What is terrorism? How do people become terrorists? To what extent can terrorism be considered rational? Quassim Cassam and Richard English tackle these vital questions in How to Think About Terrorism. How to Think About Terrorism transforms how we understand terrorism, through innovative engagem...
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About the author
Quassim Cassam is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was previously Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, Professor of Philosophy at UCL, and Reader in Philosophy at Oxford University. He has been a Mind Senior Research Fellow, President of the Aristotelian Society, and President of the Mind Association. His books include Extremism: A Philosophical Analysis (Routledge 2021), Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political (Oxford 2019), and Conspiracy Theories (Polity 2019). Richard English is Professor of Politics at Queen's University Belfast. His books include: Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA; Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland; Does Terrorism Work? A History; Does Counter-Terrorism Work? He has been elected to the British Academy, the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academia Europaea, the Royal Historical Society, and an Honorary Fellowship at Keble College Oxford. In 2018 he was awarded a CBE for services to the understanding of modern-day terrorism and political history. In 2019 he received the Royal Irish Academy's Gold Medal in the Social Sciences.
Quassim Cassam is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, an Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was previously Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, Professor of Philosophy at UCL, and Reader in Philosophy at Oxford Univers...
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