Nine of the best books to understand modern terrorism

Iain Overton is the Executive Director of Action on Armed Violence (AOAV). Prior to joining AOAV in 2013, he worked as a journalist, notably for the BBC, ITN, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and the Guardian, Telegraph, and Independent newspapers. He is the recipient of two Amnesty Media Awards, a BAFTA, and a Peabody Award, among others. He holds two degrees from Cambridge University.

Overton is the author of The Way of the Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of Firearms and the newly released The Price of Paradise: How the Suicide Bomber Shaped the Modern Age.

At the Guardian he tagged the best books to understand modern terrorism, including:

Mia Bloom’s two recent books Bombshell and, with John Horgan, Small Arms investigate the roles of women and children in terrorism, specifically as victim-perpetrators in the case of the latter. In his powerful analysis of the US’s drone wars, Sudden Justice, Chris Woods shows how harmful counter-terrorism has been, while Julia Ebner astutely examines the rise of rightwing hate rhetoric alongside Salafi-jihadist violence in The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Bombshell.

--Marshal Zeringue