ABSTRACT
During the four years 1989-1992 in which there was not a single fatality caused by terrorism in the United States, and in which thirty-four Americans were killed worldwide, American libraries catalogued 1,322 new book titles under the rubric "terrorism" and 121 under "terror-
ist:>~ The careers of thousands of experts, consultants, journalists, and scholars (ourselves included) have benefited substantially from this
production. The question is: How, in the absence of a significant number offatalities, can a discursive machine provide sufficient ammunition to sustain the plethora of texts, expertise, and conferences that will depict the phenomenon as the ultimate threat to civilization?
