Assessing Terrorism: Two Views ("How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence" by Virginia Held, And "the Trouble with Terror: Liberty, Security, And the Response to Terrorism" by Tamar Meisels) (Book Review‪)‬

[Review Essay: Virginia Held, How Terrorism is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), x + 205 pp.; and Tamar Meisels, The Trouble with Terror: Liberty, Security, and the Response to Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), xi + 239 pp.] There has been a slew of books on terrorism in the past ten years. (1) These two count among the better ones, even though each in its own way is somewhat idiosyncratic. Held's is idiosyncratic in that it seems disconnected at times. As one moves, for example, from chapter 4 ("Terrorism, Rights and Political Goals") to chapter 5 ("Group Responsibility for Ethnic Conflict") the reader puzzles as to why we are making that move. The same sense of disconnect hits the reader as Held moves to chapter 6 ("The Media and Political Violence"). Apparently, the answer to the puzzle is that she has fit together several previously published articles; and the fit isn't perfect. Meisels' book is idiosyncratic because of the great attention she pays to a particular subject. She spends two full chapters, almost one quarter of the book, on the torture question. Is it permissible to torture suspects in order to extract vital information from them? As agonizing as this question is, one can't help but wonder why it deserves that much attention even in a book concerned with how a people, any people, should respond to terrorism.