ABSTRACT
The word “terrorism” was coined in the guillotine days of the French Revolution, but the practice is much older. Terrorism stretches back in time to the bloody assassinations of the ancient Greeks and Romans and to barbaric customs such as suspending people over fires for not paying their taxes. Few parts of the world have escaped the brutalities and the climate of fear that terrorism creates. Among many examples, there were religious murder cults in the Middle East, massacres during the American Indian resistance, and Stalin’s purges in Russia, when some 20 million people died at his hands to make sure that those still alive were cowed into submission.
