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The Price of Paradise
We live in the age of the suicide bomber. The suicide bomb itself takes more lives than any other type of explosive weapon. Moreover, in the last 5 years more people have been killed by suicide attacks than at any other time in history.
How has this descent deep into the heart of terror escalated in such a way? What drives people to blow themselves up and what are the consequences? More importantly perhaps, what can be done to combat the rising spread of this form of violence?
Investigative journalist Iain Overton addresses the fundamental drivers of modern day suicide attacks in this fascinating and important book, showing how the suicide bomber has played a pivotal role in the evolution of some of the most defining forces of the modern age - from Communism and the Cold War, to the modern day War on Terror.
Interviewing Russian anarchists, Japanese kamikazes, Hezbollah militants, survivors of suicide bombings and countless other sources of valuable information, while travelling to places such as Iran, Irak and Pakistan, Overton skilfully combines historical narrative, travelogue, interviews and testimonies, and brings his research alive thanks to potent facts and visceral storytelling.
The result is a powerful and unforgettable read, the first non-academic attempt to chart the rise and rise of this weapon.
How has this descent deep into the heart of terror escalated in such a way? What drives people to blow themselves up and what are the consequences? More importantly perhaps, what can be done to combat the rising spread of this form of violence?
Investigative journalist Iain Overton addresses the fundamental drivers of modern day suicide attacks in this fascinating and important book, showing how the suicide bomber has played a pivotal role in the evolution of some of the most defining forces of the modern age - from Communism and the Cold War, to the modern day War on Terror.
Interviewing Russian anarchists, Japanese kamikazes, Hezbollah militants, survivors of suicide bombings and countless other sources of valuable information, while travelling to places such as Iran, Irak and Pakistan, Overton skilfully combines historical narrative, travelogue, interviews and testimonies, and brings his research alive thanks to potent facts and visceral storytelling.
The result is a powerful and unforgettable read, the first non-academic attempt to chart the rise and rise of this weapon.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
581 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 4, 2019
18 people are currently reading
249 people want to read
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April 8, 2019
'We live in the age of the suicide bomber. The suicide bomb itself takes more lives than any other type of explosive weapon. Moreover, in the last 5 years more people have been killed by suicide attacks than at any other time in history.
How has this descent deep into the heart of terror escalated in such a way? What drives people to blow themselves up and what are the consequences? More importantly perhaps, what can be done to combat the rising spread of this form of violence?
Investigative journalist Iain Overton addresses the fundamental drivers of modern-day suicide attacks in this fascinating and important book, showing how the suicide bomber has played a pivotal role in the evolution of some of the most defining forces of the modern age - from Communism and the Cold War, to the modern-day War on Terror.'
This book was fascinating.
I honestly believe everyone can learn something from this book; I know I did.
Iain Overton did an amazing job with this book. With so much factual information and statistics, it would have been easy for this book to read like an educational text, yet it didn't. Iain Overton was able to keep the story from getting weighed down with facts by including emotional interviews and observations throughout the book.
This book is an exploration of how and why the suicide bomber has shaped the modern age. Filled with interviews with Russian anarchists, Japanese kamikazes, Hezbollah militants, survivors of suicide bombings and suicide bombers.
With insights from places such as Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, this book is filled with fantastic interviews, testimonies and statistics that really inform the reader of the who, what when, where why and how of the suicide bomber.
I am so glad I read this book. I will be recommending it to anyone who will listen.
The Price Of Paradise by Iain Overton is a must read for absolutly everyone.
Geramie Kate Barker
gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
How has this descent deep into the heart of terror escalated in such a way? What drives people to blow themselves up and what are the consequences? More importantly perhaps, what can be done to combat the rising spread of this form of violence?
Investigative journalist Iain Overton addresses the fundamental drivers of modern-day suicide attacks in this fascinating and important book, showing how the suicide bomber has played a pivotal role in the evolution of some of the most defining forces of the modern age - from Communism and the Cold War, to the modern-day War on Terror.'
This book was fascinating.
I honestly believe everyone can learn something from this book; I know I did.
Iain Overton did an amazing job with this book. With so much factual information and statistics, it would have been easy for this book to read like an educational text, yet it didn't. Iain Overton was able to keep the story from getting weighed down with facts by including emotional interviews and observations throughout the book.
This book is an exploration of how and why the suicide bomber has shaped the modern age. Filled with interviews with Russian anarchists, Japanese kamikazes, Hezbollah militants, survivors of suicide bombings and suicide bombers.
With insights from places such as Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, this book is filled with fantastic interviews, testimonies and statistics that really inform the reader of the who, what when, where why and how of the suicide bomber.
I am so glad I read this book. I will be recommending it to anyone who will listen.
The Price Of Paradise by Iain Overton is a must read for absolutly everyone.
Geramie Kate Barker
gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
May 17, 2019
On 24th October 1990, members of the Provisional IRA forced their way into the home of Patrick Gillespie, a Catholic who worked as a cook at the Fort George British Army Base. The IRA had warned him to stop working at the base, considering his work to make him guilty of collaboration. Now he had ignored their warnings, they forced him into a van laden with explosives, chained him to the driver’s seat and with his family held at gunpoint in his home, ordered him to drive the van to an army checkpoint on the border with the Republic. When he arrived at the checkpoint, Gillespie tried to free himself from the van and warn the soldiers, but the explosives had been wired to explode should the door be opened, and he and five soldiers died in the ensuing explosion. This was one of three “proxy” bombs - forced suicide bombings in effect - that the IRA carried out during the Troubles. More were planned but the outrage was such that the IRA abandoned the tactic.
The IRA’s experiment with forced suicide bombing is just a footnote in the history of suicide bombing more broadly, and when compared with the wave of suicide bombings to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East down the years, for example, it hardly bears mentioning. A lesser writer, a more insubstantial treatment of the phenomena that is suicide bombing, would have ignored it entirely. But the author is nothing if not thorough and his latest book The Price of Paradise is nothing if not detailed and comprehensive and so it appears within its pages. As does a wealth of other fascinating, albeit sometimes grisly, and oftentimes deeply depressing, information.
The Price of Paradise traces suicide bombing from its earliest roots in Tsarist Russia, when the People’s Will group decided to assassinate Tsar Alexander 11, one of its members opting to ensure success by blowing himself up in close proximity to his target. While there had been suicidal and sacrificial acts in war before, this was the first time someone had explicitly opted to die in such a manner, laying down their own life to ensure that they take the enemy with them. The phenomenon was only to spread from there, leapfrogging to the Far East where both Japanese and Chinese forces used such tactics against each other. And then came the Kamikaze, the tactic of the Imperial Japanese Army against the superior American naval power. The chapter the author dedicates to the Kamikaze is eye-opening in itself, the author arguing convincingly that the tactic and its psychological impact goes someway to explaining why President Truman felt it necessary to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is a recurring theme that runs throughout the narrative: that suicide bombing inevitable leads to overreaction and punitive response and while sometimes, as in Japan in the Second World War, this might end the conflict (albeit with massive and horrific loss of life), all too often it creates further resentment and thus sparks further violence and attacks.
The Price of Paradise traces the tactic onwards from here to its embrace by a perhaps surprising range of often diametrically opposed forces. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, a Tamil nationalist group; Shia Iran in its war with Sunni Islam; Shia Hezbollah, Marxist militia and Christian Phalangists in the Lebanon; now Sunni extremist groups throughout the Middle East. All these factions, implacably opposed to each other, have each embraced the tactic. For example, in the 1980’s when Shia Iran began using it, waves of Iranian fighters throwing themselves against the better armed Iraqi forces, one might have been forgiven for assuming suicide bombing to be peculiar to that branch of Islam. And certainly, when the Ayatollah Khomeini was the West’s bogeyman, that was indeed the lazy assumption. But while Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah still utilise the tactic, it is now groups from the Sunni tradition, al Qaeda and ISIS, who are perhaps the worst culprits.
As explicitly made clear in the book’s sub-heading, the author’s thesis is that suicide bombing and states’ reactions to it have shaped the world and it is difficult to argue with this thesis. The biggest suicide bombing the world has ever seen was 9/11 and no one could honestly argue that this single incident changed the course of human history, leading as it did to the invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting never-ending war that that country remains, and the Bush Administration’s calamitous decision to invade Iraq. But this was no exception and the history of the effects of suicide bombing - the bombings themselves and the reactions to them - have been in microcosm what occurred after 9/11, real impacts have been felt. Laws have been changed, freedoms have been lost, and Islamophobia in particular has spread.
As with the author’s previous work, a study of the impact of small arms titled Gun Baby Gun, underpinning The Price of Paradise is a wealth of facts, statistics and fascinating anecdotes. Many non-fiction titles have endnotes, all too often they add nothing to the book, but with The Price of Paradise they’re essential, adding intricate detail to what is found in the main body of the text. If I have one criticism of this book it is that it has no index, an oversight that I find inexplicable, for there’s simply so much here that the reader might want to refer back to that really an index feels to me that it should be essential.
That said, this is a minor quibble as I can’t see anyone writing a better history of the phenomena that is suicide bombing in a long while. Essential reading, this is definitely a book worthy of 5 stars.
The IRA’s experiment with forced suicide bombing is just a footnote in the history of suicide bombing more broadly, and when compared with the wave of suicide bombings to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East down the years, for example, it hardly bears mentioning. A lesser writer, a more insubstantial treatment of the phenomena that is suicide bombing, would have ignored it entirely. But the author is nothing if not thorough and his latest book The Price of Paradise is nothing if not detailed and comprehensive and so it appears within its pages. As does a wealth of other fascinating, albeit sometimes grisly, and oftentimes deeply depressing, information.
The Price of Paradise traces suicide bombing from its earliest roots in Tsarist Russia, when the People’s Will group decided to assassinate Tsar Alexander 11, one of its members opting to ensure success by blowing himself up in close proximity to his target. While there had been suicidal and sacrificial acts in war before, this was the first time someone had explicitly opted to die in such a manner, laying down their own life to ensure that they take the enemy with them. The phenomenon was only to spread from there, leapfrogging to the Far East where both Japanese and Chinese forces used such tactics against each other. And then came the Kamikaze, the tactic of the Imperial Japanese Army against the superior American naval power. The chapter the author dedicates to the Kamikaze is eye-opening in itself, the author arguing convincingly that the tactic and its psychological impact goes someway to explaining why President Truman felt it necessary to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is a recurring theme that runs throughout the narrative: that suicide bombing inevitable leads to overreaction and punitive response and while sometimes, as in Japan in the Second World War, this might end the conflict (albeit with massive and horrific loss of life), all too often it creates further resentment and thus sparks further violence and attacks.
The Price of Paradise traces the tactic onwards from here to its embrace by a perhaps surprising range of often diametrically opposed forces. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, a Tamil nationalist group; Shia Iran in its war with Sunni Islam; Shia Hezbollah, Marxist militia and Christian Phalangists in the Lebanon; now Sunni extremist groups throughout the Middle East. All these factions, implacably opposed to each other, have each embraced the tactic. For example, in the 1980’s when Shia Iran began using it, waves of Iranian fighters throwing themselves against the better armed Iraqi forces, one might have been forgiven for assuming suicide bombing to be peculiar to that branch of Islam. And certainly, when the Ayatollah Khomeini was the West’s bogeyman, that was indeed the lazy assumption. But while Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah still utilise the tactic, it is now groups from the Sunni tradition, al Qaeda and ISIS, who are perhaps the worst culprits.
As explicitly made clear in the book’s sub-heading, the author’s thesis is that suicide bombing and states’ reactions to it have shaped the world and it is difficult to argue with this thesis. The biggest suicide bombing the world has ever seen was 9/11 and no one could honestly argue that this single incident changed the course of human history, leading as it did to the invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting never-ending war that that country remains, and the Bush Administration’s calamitous decision to invade Iraq. But this was no exception and the history of the effects of suicide bombing - the bombings themselves and the reactions to them - have been in microcosm what occurred after 9/11, real impacts have been felt. Laws have been changed, freedoms have been lost, and Islamophobia in particular has spread.
As with the author’s previous work, a study of the impact of small arms titled Gun Baby Gun, underpinning The Price of Paradise is a wealth of facts, statistics and fascinating anecdotes. Many non-fiction titles have endnotes, all too often they add nothing to the book, but with The Price of Paradise they’re essential, adding intricate detail to what is found in the main body of the text. If I have one criticism of this book it is that it has no index, an oversight that I find inexplicable, for there’s simply so much here that the reader might want to refer back to that really an index feels to me that it should be essential.
That said, this is a minor quibble as I can’t see anyone writing a better history of the phenomena that is suicide bombing in a long while. Essential reading, this is definitely a book worthy of 5 stars.
January 19, 2020
This is a fascinating exploration of a little understood aspect of modern warfare. Iain's historical analysis of the history, evolution and migration of the phenomenon is very thorough and convincing. He is equally convincing in the proposition that the West's responses only leads to further suicide bombings and the degradation of civil liberties. The final chapter on how to really address the threat and the actions states and the UN should take unfortunately much weaker and lacking in substance. However, for an understanding of the development of suicide bombing this is a must-read book.
May 27, 2022
An excellent book, by turns fascinating and horribly depressing.
Starting with the 19th C. assassination of the Tsar, by Russian anarchists, and then moving forwards in time, via such phenomenon as the Kamikaze pilots of Japan in WWII, to the ubiquitous contemporary cry of ‘Allah Akbar’, as Islamic terrorists take the monopoly on the method, Iain Overton traces a history of suicide bombing.
One thing that may initially surprise readers – it certainly surprised me (though on reflection, less so) – is how recent a development the suicide bomber is. One could potentially quibble as to a slightly deeper origin (did any of the would be assassins self-destruct during the ‘infernal device’ attempt on Napoleon’s life? Or were the casualties of that either unwitting proxies and/or just your usual unfortunate bystanders?).
Although it’s grim reading, Overton’s skill in laying out this macabre evolution is impressive. Indeed, at times his deft authorial touch is almost a bit too slick. At which times it feels, to me, almost like there was a danger the subject was becoming a form of extreme adventure tourism reportage.
One has to wonder, in an age and about a subject matter in which such reportage can attract the very worst kind of medieval responses from the enraged faithful, what makes anyone stick their head above the parapet at all. As Alan Partidge jokes when Sidekick Simon irreverently conflates Judaism with Islam, you can poke fun at Christians, by all means, and maybe even Jews ‘a little bit’. But Islam is off limits! And for reasons made all too obvious in this book.
Of course Overton isn’t making fun of Islam. Nor, as he is at pains to point out, are suicide bombers only ever Arab Muslims. But even the mere attempt by an ‘outsider’ to discuss some of the subjects covered here might seem to many a red rag to a deranged homicidal bull. And yet he proceeds, over the course of 16 or so well constructed chapters to attempt to forensically study the rise of the suicide bomber.
That this mostly revolves around Islamic practitioners of this grisly but incredibly potent weapon will surprise no one. But the route there may. Taking in not just the aforementioned Russian anarchists and Japanese pilots, but also Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers. And Overton does a great job of mapping the grim and bloody road.
For most of the book the author successfully occludes his own judgements, in that time honoured modern western liberal mode of at least attempting to be balanced and dispassionate. Only occasionally letting slip through, or sometimes outrightly acknowledging, his own biases.
In examining why folk – be they men, women, or even children – might allow themselves to kill and be killed this way, or even embrace (sometimes individually, but more often in a collective context), such a ‘martyrdom’, and what the fallout is for the victims, their loved ones and the physically and mentally traumatised survivors, Overton eventually climbs down off the fence.
And so it is that fairly near the end of this sizeable book, most clearly when talking about the victims, he talks bluntly of the ‘ugly ideology’ and ‘religious delusions’ of the perpetrators, and how wrong it is that those they murder be remembered solely via such an abrupt and violent end to their lives. Lives which had, until that cataclysmically fateful intersection, nothing to do with such toxic pre-medieval nonsense, enabled as it so frequently is, ironically, by diabolically modern means.
It’s hard not to look at the events covered here, and how things have continued to develop since the book was published (2018) and despair. The self-appointed Davids of these persistent backwards folklores may not have slain the ‘Great Satan’ Goliaths, but they still seem to be winning, inasmuch as their impact is so incredibly pervasive, and that so few can adversely affect so many.
With tragic irony, given that the suicide bomber supposedly seeks to both create a better (in their own view) world here and now, and enter into one via the act themselves, anyone really and truly aspiring to a better world seems to lose. The bombers because their infantile fantasies are so crudely preposterous and unreal. The societies they damage, because the cycles of violence are simply ever more deeply embedded and perpetuated.
Only the very worst gain anything from the whole sorry mess: thugs using the cloak of religious fanaticism to get their short term jollies (Jihadi John springs to mind), whilst the arms dealing cyber-security peddling corporate suit types get a more long term if ultimately equally fleeting dividends. Only such parasitic breeds as these, disguising themselves, however thinly, and however cynically or otherwise, as ‘respectable’ types, profit in any way.
Everyone else – and that’s beyond those killed and injured – suffers doubly. Firstly with the ever growing all-pervasive fears of death and destruction, and second with the zero-sum scenario, in which vast overspending on paranoic ‘defense’ measures, and the none too subtle erosion of hard won human rights, find the already far from perfect conditions of life in so-called liberal western societies (and elsewhere) being fundamentally eroded and undermined.
On the one hand I’m quite keen to read Overton’s previous book, Gun, Baby, Gun. But on the other I’m chary of doing so. Like the violence of the world generally, there’s a macabre fascination with the ‘dark side’. But one also needs to be wary of over-saturation, or even contamination, with all this ‘dark matter’.
Still, all in all, this is a very good and much needed book. He even offers, as one might hope and expect, some ideas about how we might move towards a better place. Hardly a light read, but definitely recommended.
Starting with the 19th C. assassination of the Tsar, by Russian anarchists, and then moving forwards in time, via such phenomenon as the Kamikaze pilots of Japan in WWII, to the ubiquitous contemporary cry of ‘Allah Akbar’, as Islamic terrorists take the monopoly on the method, Iain Overton traces a history of suicide bombing.
One thing that may initially surprise readers – it certainly surprised me (though on reflection, less so) – is how recent a development the suicide bomber is. One could potentially quibble as to a slightly deeper origin (did any of the would be assassins self-destruct during the ‘infernal device’ attempt on Napoleon’s life? Or were the casualties of that either unwitting proxies and/or just your usual unfortunate bystanders?).
Although it’s grim reading, Overton’s skill in laying out this macabre evolution is impressive. Indeed, at times his deft authorial touch is almost a bit too slick. At which times it feels, to me, almost like there was a danger the subject was becoming a form of extreme adventure tourism reportage.
One has to wonder, in an age and about a subject matter in which such reportage can attract the very worst kind of medieval responses from the enraged faithful, what makes anyone stick their head above the parapet at all. As Alan Partidge jokes when Sidekick Simon irreverently conflates Judaism with Islam, you can poke fun at Christians, by all means, and maybe even Jews ‘a little bit’. But Islam is off limits! And for reasons made all too obvious in this book.
Of course Overton isn’t making fun of Islam. Nor, as he is at pains to point out, are suicide bombers only ever Arab Muslims. But even the mere attempt by an ‘outsider’ to discuss some of the subjects covered here might seem to many a red rag to a deranged homicidal bull. And yet he proceeds, over the course of 16 or so well constructed chapters to attempt to forensically study the rise of the suicide bomber.
That this mostly revolves around Islamic practitioners of this grisly but incredibly potent weapon will surprise no one. But the route there may. Taking in not just the aforementioned Russian anarchists and Japanese pilots, but also Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers. And Overton does a great job of mapping the grim and bloody road.
For most of the book the author successfully occludes his own judgements, in that time honoured modern western liberal mode of at least attempting to be balanced and dispassionate. Only occasionally letting slip through, or sometimes outrightly acknowledging, his own biases.
In examining why folk – be they men, women, or even children – might allow themselves to kill and be killed this way, or even embrace (sometimes individually, but more often in a collective context), such a ‘martyrdom’, and what the fallout is for the victims, their loved ones and the physically and mentally traumatised survivors, Overton eventually climbs down off the fence.
And so it is that fairly near the end of this sizeable book, most clearly when talking about the victims, he talks bluntly of the ‘ugly ideology’ and ‘religious delusions’ of the perpetrators, and how wrong it is that those they murder be remembered solely via such an abrupt and violent end to their lives. Lives which had, until that cataclysmically fateful intersection, nothing to do with such toxic pre-medieval nonsense, enabled as it so frequently is, ironically, by diabolically modern means.
It’s hard not to look at the events covered here, and how things have continued to develop since the book was published (2018) and despair. The self-appointed Davids of these persistent backwards folklores may not have slain the ‘Great Satan’ Goliaths, but they still seem to be winning, inasmuch as their impact is so incredibly pervasive, and that so few can adversely affect so many.
With tragic irony, given that the suicide bomber supposedly seeks to both create a better (in their own view) world here and now, and enter into one via the act themselves, anyone really and truly aspiring to a better world seems to lose. The bombers because their infantile fantasies are so crudely preposterous and unreal. The societies they damage, because the cycles of violence are simply ever more deeply embedded and perpetuated.
Only the very worst gain anything from the whole sorry mess: thugs using the cloak of religious fanaticism to get their short term jollies (Jihadi John springs to mind), whilst the arms dealing cyber-security peddling corporate suit types get a more long term if ultimately equally fleeting dividends. Only such parasitic breeds as these, disguising themselves, however thinly, and however cynically or otherwise, as ‘respectable’ types, profit in any way.
Everyone else – and that’s beyond those killed and injured – suffers doubly. Firstly with the ever growing all-pervasive fears of death and destruction, and second with the zero-sum scenario, in which vast overspending on paranoic ‘defense’ measures, and the none too subtle erosion of hard won human rights, find the already far from perfect conditions of life in so-called liberal western societies (and elsewhere) being fundamentally eroded and undermined.
On the one hand I’m quite keen to read Overton’s previous book, Gun, Baby, Gun. But on the other I’m chary of doing so. Like the violence of the world generally, there’s a macabre fascination with the ‘dark side’. But one also needs to be wary of over-saturation, or even contamination, with all this ‘dark matter’.
Still, all in all, this is a very good and much needed book. He even offers, as one might hope and expect, some ideas about how we might move towards a better place. Hardly a light read, but definitely recommended.
July 20, 2019
Iain Overton’s meticulously researched history of the suicide bomber begins with an iron-clad carriage rattling through the snowy streets of St Petersburg on a cloudy spring day in 1881. In a vividly recounted scene, a bomb is thrown under the wagon, in which Tsar Alexander II is returning from reviewing his Imperial Horse Guards.
Amid the chaos the Russian emperor emerges nearly unscathed from what is the eighth assassination attempt against him during his rein. But rather than flee, he remains to survey the damage. That delay is to prove fatal. Another assassin enters the fray. The young revolutionary, Ignaty Grinevitsky, seems aware that the price of success will be his own life. He tosses another bomb and the explosion kills both the tsar and himself.
The age of the suicide bomber has begun.
Overton’s book moves from anarchist ideas of the “propaganda of the deed” to the final days of the Second World War, where thousands of Japanese Kamikaze pilots are hurling themselves against American warships in suicidal waves. Through the analogy of a virus, and concrete historical examples, Overton illustrates how each generation of suicide bombers has been influenced and often even instructed by earlier proponents of the phenomenon. Iranian Basij martyr brigades during the Iran Iraq war inspire Hezbollah militants, who in turn teach the tactic to Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers. Each chapter involves an engaging mix of historical and contemporary reportage, as Overton, an investigative journalist, visits locations with connections to the suicide bomber phenomenon.
This timeline of terror firmly establishes a pedigree for suicide bombings that long precedes the current monopoly of the tactic by Sunni extremists. While in the decade since 9/11 98 per cent of suicide bombings have been carried out by Sunni militants, this wasn’t always the case. But by the time we reach the present, it is clear that suicide bombing has truly come of age by the 21st century. Overton reports that in 2016 there were 469 suicide bombings in 28 countries.
Turning to why men, and some women, chose self-annihilation, Overton lays out a convincing case that religious fervour is but one motivation among many. Marshalling impressive quantities of data, he takes the reader beyond the stereotype of the young sexually frustrated bomber obsessed with virgins in paradise to examine motivators ranging from mental illness to rage against foreign occupation and government abuses. The motivations for violent suicide operate in a complex matrix, and no one cause emerges as the ultimate trigger to a suicide vest. Only one commonality consistently emerges across time and place: the belief, no matter how misguided, that the action of self-annihilation is altruistic and will somehow contribute to heralding in a better world.
The reality though of the effects of suicide bombing are almost entirely negative, and in the second half of the book Overton looks at the immense cost such terror attacks have imposed on modern societies.
To date, some 72,000 people worldwide have been killed in suicide attacks, and twice that number injured. But the cost extends far beyond the toll bombers have exacted on their enemies and innocent victims. The responses by governments to terror have shaped our world. The emotional impact of men flying planes into buildings, or detonating themselves in public places, has impelled states to start wars, bomb foreign countries and curtail freedoms as populations turn inwards and start to fear the other. Embassies worldwide are fortified, police militarised, airport security increased in never-ending layers, while surveillance and drone strikes are justified by the need to defend against a nearly undetectable enemy. “Man’s response to these attacks have been more violent, more destructive, than the deeds themselves,” Overton writes. “In that overstep we have ended up doubly paying for the martyr’s act in many hidden and unexpected ways.”
These sections firmly discredit suicide bombing as a legitimate tactic of the oppressed.
After 14 chapters outlining the complexities of suicide bombings and the failed responses to them, it should be clear that there is no easy solution to one of the most vexing challenges to the state’s monopoly on violence. Overton, who also runs the research charity Action on Armed Violence, makes a valiant effort though to provide a prescription. His suggestions range from the concrete to the aspirational. Seeking a global ban on suicide bombing could help attract funding and stigmatise its use even by those who are not signatories to a treaty. Likewise appealing to religious authorities to condemn suicide bombings could help delegitimise their use.
But ultimately while global injustices are unaddressed and states remain focused on retributive justice, suicide bombings will continue to terrorise societies. Defusing them would involve listening to the grievances of those who might support their use, something precious few in power are prepared to countenance. Being asked to consider love and empathy as a response to violent murder may be a tall order for readers, which in itself serves as an effective illustration of the difficulty inherent in combatting suicide attack. In the absence of such radical responses though, it seems inevitable that suicide bombers will continue to shape the age we live in.
Amid the chaos the Russian emperor emerges nearly unscathed from what is the eighth assassination attempt against him during his rein. But rather than flee, he remains to survey the damage. That delay is to prove fatal. Another assassin enters the fray. The young revolutionary, Ignaty Grinevitsky, seems aware that the price of success will be his own life. He tosses another bomb and the explosion kills both the tsar and himself.
The age of the suicide bomber has begun.
Overton’s book moves from anarchist ideas of the “propaganda of the deed” to the final days of the Second World War, where thousands of Japanese Kamikaze pilots are hurling themselves against American warships in suicidal waves. Through the analogy of a virus, and concrete historical examples, Overton illustrates how each generation of suicide bombers has been influenced and often even instructed by earlier proponents of the phenomenon. Iranian Basij martyr brigades during the Iran Iraq war inspire Hezbollah militants, who in turn teach the tactic to Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers. Each chapter involves an engaging mix of historical and contemporary reportage, as Overton, an investigative journalist, visits locations with connections to the suicide bomber phenomenon.
This timeline of terror firmly establishes a pedigree for suicide bombings that long precedes the current monopoly of the tactic by Sunni extremists. While in the decade since 9/11 98 per cent of suicide bombings have been carried out by Sunni militants, this wasn’t always the case. But by the time we reach the present, it is clear that suicide bombing has truly come of age by the 21st century. Overton reports that in 2016 there were 469 suicide bombings in 28 countries.
Turning to why men, and some women, chose self-annihilation, Overton lays out a convincing case that religious fervour is but one motivation among many. Marshalling impressive quantities of data, he takes the reader beyond the stereotype of the young sexually frustrated bomber obsessed with virgins in paradise to examine motivators ranging from mental illness to rage against foreign occupation and government abuses. The motivations for violent suicide operate in a complex matrix, and no one cause emerges as the ultimate trigger to a suicide vest. Only one commonality consistently emerges across time and place: the belief, no matter how misguided, that the action of self-annihilation is altruistic and will somehow contribute to heralding in a better world.
The reality though of the effects of suicide bombing are almost entirely negative, and in the second half of the book Overton looks at the immense cost such terror attacks have imposed on modern societies.
To date, some 72,000 people worldwide have been killed in suicide attacks, and twice that number injured. But the cost extends far beyond the toll bombers have exacted on their enemies and innocent victims. The responses by governments to terror have shaped our world. The emotional impact of men flying planes into buildings, or detonating themselves in public places, has impelled states to start wars, bomb foreign countries and curtail freedoms as populations turn inwards and start to fear the other. Embassies worldwide are fortified, police militarised, airport security increased in never-ending layers, while surveillance and drone strikes are justified by the need to defend against a nearly undetectable enemy. “Man’s response to these attacks have been more violent, more destructive, than the deeds themselves,” Overton writes. “In that overstep we have ended up doubly paying for the martyr’s act in many hidden and unexpected ways.”
These sections firmly discredit suicide bombing as a legitimate tactic of the oppressed.
After 14 chapters outlining the complexities of suicide bombings and the failed responses to them, it should be clear that there is no easy solution to one of the most vexing challenges to the state’s monopoly on violence. Overton, who also runs the research charity Action on Armed Violence, makes a valiant effort though to provide a prescription. His suggestions range from the concrete to the aspirational. Seeking a global ban on suicide bombing could help attract funding and stigmatise its use even by those who are not signatories to a treaty. Likewise appealing to religious authorities to condemn suicide bombings could help delegitimise their use.
But ultimately while global injustices are unaddressed and states remain focused on retributive justice, suicide bombings will continue to terrorise societies. Defusing them would involve listening to the grievances of those who might support their use, something precious few in power are prepared to countenance. Being asked to consider love and empathy as a response to violent murder may be a tall order for readers, which in itself serves as an effective illustration of the difficulty inherent in combatting suicide attack. In the absence of such radical responses though, it seems inevitable that suicide bombers will continue to shape the age we live in.
August 9, 2021
Its very interesting when the author is telling of the history, people and belief systems involved in suicide bombings. The last couple of chapters, detailing what we should do, shows the authors liberalism. I wouldnt bother reading those, they add nothing.
May 17, 2022
Disturbing and fascinating at the same time, Overton's well researched exploration of the history of the phenomenon of suicide bombers and what motivates them makes for a gripping and eye-opening read. An important book on a subject very much relevant to the times we live in.
April 26, 2019
Disturbing. And upsetting. An important book for our time.
November 1, 2019
Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the suicide bomber phenomenon.
Iain Overton's extensive knowledge and meticulous research makes for an eye-opening read which will haunt you for a long time after you've finished the 400+ pages. And it should - there's no sign of suicide bomber attacks decreasing, on the contrary, from it's origins in the 1800's when the Tsar of Russia was killed in the first suicide bomber attack, it's grown and spread at an alarming rate.
Iain succeeds in addressing a serious, unsettling subject in an accessible way.
Iain Overton's extensive knowledge and meticulous research makes for an eye-opening read which will haunt you for a long time after you've finished the 400+ pages. And it should - there's no sign of suicide bomber attacks decreasing, on the contrary, from it's origins in the 1800's when the Tsar of Russia was killed in the first suicide bomber attack, it's grown and spread at an alarming rate.
Iain succeeds in addressing a serious, unsettling subject in an accessible way.
March 14, 2022
Exceptional.
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