The Mind of the Political Terrorist

By Richard M. Pearlstein

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0842023453
• ISBN13: 9780842023450
• Release Date: July 1991
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 347 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 1.1" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Solid introduction to Cold War era terrorism

And interesting theories on the psychological motivation for political terrorists. Pearlstein's analysis is that narcissism plays a deciding factor in pushing the individual into terrorism. The individual has some sort of negative experience that shatters his self esteem, the "narcissistic injury", and this leads to "narcissistic rage" against a world that does not conform to his expectations. Pearlstein analyzes 7 terrorists and he applies this system to all but one, Carlos the Jackal, who does not seem to fit the profile. Many of the terrorists had bad childhoods, or bad marriages, or bad jobs, or all of the above, and each found a new, omnipotent ego in the Weathermen or Symbionese Liberation Army or East German Red Brigade (6 out of the 7 terrorists are Marxists). These terrorists can find an easy rationalization in Marxism and 60s intellectualism, where Maoist pukes like Sartre rationalized terrorism as "man recreating himself".Can this apply to modern day radical Islamic terrorism? Ossama Bin Laden had it pretty easy growing up. The narcissism is the belief in the religion, the race, and w/ the mediocrity of the Arab-Islamic world in comparison to the West, we can see the "group" narcissistic injury that not only leads to individual terrorists taking the cause of the people on themselves (Ossama and Zarqawi and Sirhan Sirhan) but also groups of individuals giving financial and material support to the Al Qaedas and Hezbollahs of the world. The narcissistic injury need not be individual, but also collective.