Day of the Assassins
A History of Political Murder
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
‘Written with Burleigh’s characteristic brio, with pithy summaries of historical moments (he is brilliant on the Americans in Vietnam, for example) and full of surprising vignettes’ – The Times ’Book of the Week’
In Day of the Assassins, acclaimed historian Michael Burleigh examines assassination as a special category of political violence and asks whether, like a contagious disease, it can be catching.
Focusing chiefly on the last century and a half, Burleigh takes readers from Europe, Russia, Israel and the United States to the Congo, India, Iran, Laos, Rwanda, South Africa and Vietnam. And, as we travel, we revisit notable assassinations, among them Leon Trotsky, Hendrik Verwoerd, Juvénal Habyarimana, Indira Gandhi, Yitzhak Rabin and Jamal Khashoggi.
Combining human drama, questions of political morality and the sheer randomness of events, Day of the Assassins is a riveting insight into the politics of violence.
‘Brilliant and timely . . . Our world today is as dangerous and mixed-up as it has ever been. Luckily we have Michael Burleigh to help us make sense of it.’ – Mail on Sunday
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this wide-ranging survey, historian Burleigh (Populism) examines assassination plots from ancient Rome to the present day. He begins with the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, the most well-known example of "tyrannicide," or the killing of a leader with too much power, and goes on to recount lesser-known assassinations of the Reformation, when leaders of warring Christian sects would name their counterparts heretics, a move which absolved any follower who killed them. Burleigh also focuses on assassination as an international political tool in the 20th century, including the Soviet Union's covert training of "five-man assassination squads" to operate in Weimar Germany, and spotlights the CIA's assassination plots against Fidel Castro and leaders of the Viet Cong, as well as the agency's more recent drone killings in the Middle East. Delving deep into discussions considering the actual effectiveness of assassination as a political tool, Burleigh shows that while the political consequences are historically mixed, the social ones are usually negative; he warns of a near future in which political killings may rise as extremist groups in the U.S. and other nations continue to grow in influence. It's an enlightening look at the interplay between violence and power.
