Today, in the 21st century, terrorism is almost a constant in our world: there is not a day that passes without a small or large terrorist attack occurring somewhere on the planet, the impact of which can potentially be felt by the entire international community. The attacks of September 11, 2001, in New York marked for many the beginning of a new era in historical development, and today thousands of people in the Middle East, Africa, and even Europe lose their lives or are affected by actions characterized as terrorist.

However, terrorism is not a phenomenon of our time. It is as old as human history. In the 1st century BC, the Roman patrician Clodius Pulcher used gangs of killers to intimidate his opponents. The Muslim Assassins of the 12th century killed and terrorized their enemies. During the French Revolution, when the term terrorism first appeared, a regime of terror was imposed. In the 19th century, Russian revolutionaries who fought for the vision of socialism resorted to terrorism, as did European anarchists committed to the abolition of all authority. American workers used it to intimidate industrialists, while German fascists used it to pave the way for their seizure of power. Both Zionists and Arabs used terrorist methods in their efforts to establish states in Palestine. Moreover, various cult movements hope that acts of terrorism will hasten the Apocalypse.

Randall Law's analysis is based on three main approaches to terrorism: as a tactic, as a strategy, and as a linguistic or social construct, situating the terrorist event within its socio-political context. It aims to provide the reader with a comprehensible and concise history of terrorism, presenting both the central actors and major organizations as well as the most important political, social, cultural, religious, and economic parameters that gave meaning to their actions. In other words, the book intertwines the history of terrorism with the history of the societies that gave rise to it.