Featured Book - "What Makes a Terrorist?"

Alan B. Krueger
What Makes a Terrorist? Economics and the Root of Terrorism
Princeton University Press, 2007, 363.32511 KRU

When the rhetoric of the War on Terror sees George Bush arguing that "[w]e fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror", and the arguments that support that position seem so intuitive, you would expect the latest book by economist Alan Krueger addressing the roots of terrorism to support that view. In fact, he sets out to debunk most of the premises that frame international counter-terrorist practises.

Based on a lecture given in 2006 at the London School of Economics, What Makes a Terrorist? argues that, instead of recruiting from the undereducated and economically vulnerable in their native countries for attacks on Western soil, terrorist organisations, terrorists and terrorism are far more likely to look like the events of summer 2007, when doctors and engineers in the UK plotted and carried out suicide bombings in their home country.

Krueger’s work hilighting the myths that surround the motivations and methods of terrorists in the media is an important statement at a time when they determine foreign and domestic policies to an unprecedented extent, and he will be presenting and discussing his findings and their implications at a lecture here at the RSA on 16 January 2008.

To borrow a copy of What Makes a Terrorist? Economics and the Root of Terrorism, please contact the RSA Library.