| Title | : | Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1529030137 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781529030136 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 560 |
| Publication | : | First published May 27, 2021 |
The traditional image of a political assassin is a lone wolf with a gun, aimed squarely at the head of those they wish to kill. But while there has been enormous speculation on what lay behind notorious individual political assassinations – from Julius Caesar to John F. Kennedy – the phenomenon itself has scarcely been examined as a special category of political violence, one not motivated by personal gain or vengeance.
Now, in Day of the Assassins, acclaimed historian Michael Burleigh explores the many facets of political assassination, explaining the role of historical precedent, why it is more frequent in certain types of society than others and asking if assassination can either bring about change, or prevent it, and whether, like a contagious disease, political murder can be catching. Focusing chiefly on the last century and a half, Burleigh takes readers to the Congo, India, Iran, Laos, Rwanda and South Africa and revisits notable assassinations in Europe, Russia, Israel and the United States.
Throughout, the assassins themselves are at the centre of the narrative, whether they were cool, well-trained professional killers, like the agents of the NKVD or the KGB, or men motivated by the politicization of their private miseries. Even some of those who were demonstrably mad had method in the madness and acted for comprehensible political motives.
Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder Reviews
-
Very interesting. Some times i got lost from too many details of who murdered wgo. But some chapters wrre facinating with the info, plots and the charactets involved.
The only missing part is what goes in the mind of the assassin. But maybe it is left to thriller writers. -
Not so much about assassins as the political and religious circumstances and beliefs that bring them about. At no point did the author try to really get under the skin of an assassin and delve into their character or motivation. Indeed, at times this felt like it had nothing to do with assassins and was instead a lesson on political history. Too broad in scope, this was unfocused and uneven, jumping from one thing to the next. Unless you have a good grasp of historical geopolitics then much of it washes over your head. The writing is turgid at times, long, confusing sentences with too many names and abbreviations, easily losing the reader in detail. The author's own strong views sometimes derail the whole thing. Only just avoided one star on the evidence that clearly its well researched and a lot of work has gone into it, but in the end, poorly written. A better book would pick 6 or 7 famous assassinations from history to focus on and build an argument around them. This was all over the place trying to cover too much. Very disappointing.
-
This book tries to cover too much and so ends up covering nothing. Some killings are only given a paragraph, others maybe 10 pages, which is not nearly enough to really understand the motivations for killing various leaders of countries with highly complex political histories.
You are also expected to remember a whole bunch of acronyms, and alternative names for various acronymed groups (which burleigh will use interchangeably, sometimes making it seem as though one group is two different groups). Timelines are unclear as burleigh likes to set up the scene (which is fine) but then will proceed to jump backwards and forwards in time repeatedly, including to after the assassination in question, as different characters are introduced, so within one page he can touch on 4 or 5 different years.
But despite not explaining a whole lot of background or aftermath, burleigh does find time to throw in random, unnecessary and sometimes unintelligible details which add nothing. If someone can explain to me what "the obscurantist Catholic philosophy of personalism and neo-confucianism" of Ngo Dinh Diem actually means that would be most helpful. He seems to think this sort of interlude adds pizazz or maybe humour, when it mostly adds frustration.
It would be a much better book if burleigh picked one assassination per chapter which was illustrative of the points he wanted to make. Then at the end tie up with the points he touched on about whether assassination actually helps or hinders the state who ordered it. Or at the very least stay within one country and in vaguely chronological order within a chapter. The best chapter was the one on drones where he stuck to that topic for quite some time so actually explored the consequences of drone warfare.
Finally, parts are just very poorly edited. For example the book states that Benjamin Netanyahu wants Yossi Cohen to succeed him, and then repeats that Netanyahu views Cohen as a possible successor at the start of the very next paragraph. Also acronyms or shortenings are provided their full name after they have already been used several times. -
**ARC from Edelweiss**
I would recommend this book only to people who really love world history and politics. I enjoyed this book but it was incredibly dense with many names (individuals as well as organizations) to keep track of.
The author organizes the book well and his style of writing is easy to follow.
If someone is reading this book looking for a list of assassins and the assassinated, they will be disappointed. As I learned, assassinations don't take place in a vacuum, you need to know what was going on politically at the time to fully understand what was going on. -
Very uneven, overgeneralised and in the one case that I do know something about (the September 1966 assassination of South African prime minister and architect of apartheid, Dr. H.F. Verwoerd), the account is filled with very sloppy errors of geography and fact.
I gave up in the end, lost interest in the author's somewhat superficial and sensationalist style. -
Dnf
