Social protest, violence and terror in nineteenth and twentieth century
- London Macmillan. 1982
- 411p.
The essays collected in this volume originate from contributions to a conference on Social Protest, Violence, Terror: Strategies of violence resorted to by social and political fringe groups in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries', which was arranged by the German Historical Institute, London. The studies presented here are intended to give, as it were in a joint venture, an assessment of the many political groups and movements which in the course of the last century and a half have resorted to means of violence and individual terror in one way or another in order to press certain political or economic demands upon reluctant governments, regardless of whether they were authoritarian, constitutional or democratic. The spectrum of political groupings which at one time or another, under specific historical conditions, resorted to strategies of violence and individual terror, or even guerrilla war, must be considered extraordinarily wide-ranging. Contrary to currently fashionable beliefs, recourse to violence in deliberate violation of the law as well as governmental authority is a widespread phenomenon throughout history.