ABSTRACT
Arguably no other fi eld has witnessed as great an increase in academic output over the last decade as the discipline known as terrorism studies. This has resulted in a greatly enhanced understanding of specifi c contemporary topics such as al-Qaeda, the radicalization process, terrorist uses of the internet, suicide terrorism, de-radicalization and disengagement from terrorism, and the challenges non-state actors face in acquiring and weaponizing chemical and biological agents. But while this exponential increase in terrorism literature has led to a welcome broadening of the scope of perspectives and approaches to studying the phenomenon, comparatively little attention has been devoted to attempts to systematically develop the quality of the terrorism studies discipline itself. For instance, while a new book on terrorism comes out roughly every six hours, 2 only three books evaluating the state of the fi eld and its future directions have been published in the last 12 years. 3 These books, as well as many recent panels of terrorism studies specialists tasked with evaluating the state of the discipline, have unequivocally called for more historical comparative research across different contexts, increased effort to incrementally build on past research conducted by other authors, and above all, the need for more fi rst hand research.
