Anatomy of the Red Brigades
Subtitle: the religious mind-set of modern terrorists
By: Alessandro Orsini ; translated from the Italian by Sarah J. Nodes
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Ithaca, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 317
ISBN-13: 9780801449864
Subjects: Ideology; Brigate rosse; Terrorism
Work titles: Anatomia delle Brigate rosse
Description: "In the first English edition of a book that has won critical acclaim and major prizes in Italy, Alessandro Orsini contends that the dominant logic of the Red Brigades was essentially eschatological, focused on purifying a corrupt world through violence. Only through revolutionary terror, Brigadists believed, could humanity be saved from the putrefying effects of capitalism and imperialism ... Orsini has devised a microsociological theory that allows him to reconstruct the group dynamics leading to political homicide in extreme-left and neonazi terrorist groups. This 'subversive-revolutionary feedback theory' states that the willingness to mete out and suffer death depends, in the last analysis, on how far the terrorist has been incorporated into the revolutionary sect"--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-311) and index.