Adam Lankford

The author certainly cannot be faulted for a lack of self-confidence. According to him, this book is the key to solving the problem of suicide terrorism. Unfortunately, the thesis is simplistic and self-serving. Suicide terrorists are willing to kill themselves, so they are by definition suicidal, which means they are by definition mentally ill. He suggests, as one example, that all airline passengers be forced to take a five-minute online test that will predict whether they have suicide tendencies. Presumably they will then lose their civil rights as a national security measure.

This work shows the great danger when people, even if expert in one discipline, try to make a name for themselves in another where they have little to no understanding. A criminal justice professor, Lankford possesses only a layman's understanding of existential psychology and other disciplines that more immediately inform the problem he treats with unnerving crudeness.

Although he lacks the tools to synthesize the primary material, he does seem to cast his eyes over much of it. So while this should not be the only book one reads on the topic, or even among the first twenty, if approached with a better background than the author himself possesses it can still inspire an interesting idea or two.… (plus d'informations)