Terrorist Attacks on American Soil

From the Civil War Era to the Present

By (author) J. Michael Martinez

Publication date:

25 October 2012

Length of book:

488 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442203235

Understanding the context of terrorism requires a trek through history, in this case the history of terrorist activity in the United States since the Civil War. Because the topic is large and complex, Terrorists Attacks on American Soil: From the Civil War to the Present does not claim to be an exhaustive history of terrorism or the definitive account of how and why terrorists do what they do. Instead, this book takes a representative sampling of the most horrific terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in an effort to understand the context in which they occurred and the lessons that can be learned from these events.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Understanding Terrorism PART I: The Nineteenth Century Chapter 1: “A Sight Which Can Never Be Forgotten”: The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857) Chapter 2: “The Gentle, Kindhearted Bioterrorist”: Luke Pryor Blackburn and the Yellow Fever Plot (1864-1865) Chapter 3: “We May Suspect That Race was the Cause of the Hostility”: The Colfax Massacre (1873) PART II: The Modern Era Chapter 4: “The McNamaras Have Betrayed Labor”: The Los Angeles Times Bombing (1910) Chapter 5: “An Explosion Just Like the Sound of a Gatling Gun”: The Wall Street Bombing (1920) Chapter 6: “A President Has to Expect These Things”: The Truman Assassination Attempt (1950) Chapter 7: “The Klan is Back on the Market”: The Sixteenth Street Bombing and the Civil Rights Movement (1963) Chapter 8: “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Winds Blows”: Weatherman and the Counterculture Movement (1960s) PART III: Postmodern Terror Chapter 9: “A Revolution Against the Industrial System”: The Unabomber (1970s-1990s) Chapter 10: “How Charged with Punishments the Scroll”: The Oklahoma City Bombing (1995) Chapter 11: “There is a Bomb in Centennial Park; You Have 30 Minutes”: Eric Robert Rudolph (Late 1990s) Chapter 12: “The System was Blinking Red”: The Radical Islamic Movement and the September 11 Attacks PART IV: Conclusion The Lessons of Terrorism Notes References About the Author

In this work, Martinez, an attorney with a string of books to his credit that touch upon law, rights, and history, reminds us that terrorism is not unknown in American history, though until recently we have usually been quick to put it behind us. In a dozen chapters he examines notable cases of terrorist incidents outbreaks in America, most of which were well known in their day, yet are largely forgotten today: the Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857), the Confederate Yellow Fever plot (1864-1865), the Colfax Massacre (1873) , the Los Angeles Times bombing (1910), the Wall Street 'Wagon Bomb' (1920), the Truman assassination attempt (1950), the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (1963), the 'Weather' underground (1960s), the 'Unabomber' (1970s-1990s), Oklahoma City (1995), the Atlanta Olympics Bombing (1996), and 9/11. Martinez opens each chapter with the circumstances that led to the incident. He then looks at the perpetrators, religious or political 'true believers,' disaffected loners, white racists, or radical nationalists, trying to understand what they saw as their objectives and their choice of tactics. He then gives us a concise account of the incident as it unfolded, the official response, the consequences of the event, and any lessons to be learned. While Martinez hardly covers more than a handful of terror attacks on American soil, his examples . . . cover the varying nature of these events and the people who committed them, making this a profitable read for the concerned citizen.