Terrorist Attacks on American Soil: From Civil War Era to the Present by J. Michael Martinez

★★★★

Another book chosen in my wild game called “book roulette”, where I randomly pick a book from the shelves of the library (after all, there’s no harm. If I don’t like it, I can simply return it, no charge to me). After attempting to find reviews of the book on Shelfari and other reading books I realized…I’m the only one that has read it, or at least acknowledged it. Luckily, I enjoyed this book much more than I expected.

The author goes through several (but definitely not all of them!) terroristic attacks on the United States, starting with the mid- 1800s and ending with the Sept. 11, 2001 attack. He goes through the history of the situation, the why’s, how’s, outcome, etc. Some of these cases can be questioned as whether they are truly terroristic in manner (as there are many definitions of terrorism) and while the author acknowledges this, he also has reasoning for why they are included in this book and I respect those decisions. It is obvious he did his research and I found myself easily engrossed in the book. However, due to its depressing content, I could only handle it in small doses, sprinkling in lighter reading in between.

I definitely don’t think this is a book for everyone. One has to be seriously into social history. I think the author does a good job at being as objective as possible, not judging anybody with in these pages, just giving the facts. But even the best of us slip in opinions where they may not be wanted. It may be a depressing book for some and perhaps even offending (although it wasn’t to me). I found it fascinating, well researching, and enlightening on little known areas.
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