Our panel on the history of terrorism, new avenues of research. So we areroundtable, each going to speak for five to 10 minutes, somewhat informally. We will talk about specific aspects of our research. Introducer,ator and i will be the most general in my comments. Of timewill have a lot i am anticipating over an hour to talk amongst ourselves and to take questions and comments and feedback from you this a fully, experiential, interactive exercise as we proceed. My name is randy law, i am a russian and soviet historian by , but i have been working in the field of terrorism for a decade or more. The project that brought us together is an edited volume done by the routledge history of terrorism. Large reference work that i was interested in putting together as something that would be comprehensive. That would read as a cohesive book, not just a collection of articles. During the writing of it, contributors share their chapters with each other, there was a good bit of dialogue back and forth and the contributors themselves got into it and took off and ran with it. Product able is a we wanted to do in person what we saw to do within the book itself. Talk to each other, engage each other in what we mean by , certainly some of the conceptual problems associated with it i think they will as well, to try to bring forth some. Uestions let me introduce the panelists and then i will give a few introductory comments. Presenterter on my left is matt jennings. He is at middle state georgia university, formally Macon State College in georgia. Since been at macon state 2007. His Research Interests include early native American History and the history of violence. The chapter he contributed is on early american, colonial suffering to the civil war violence. Enter twined history an intertwined history and archaeology at the site. Next, in terms of the order of presentation is stephen isaac. He is a preference or of medieval history. His fields of research are 12 history,ilitary islamic history and ancient greece. Cowardicens include on the medieval battlefield. He is a forthcoming article on mercenaries and wolves. Im fascinated and do not have the details on this. Will they be forthcoming . I can work it in. Work, hesent looking at the circumstances of civilians when their towns come under siege. Termplaud employ the terror antiterrorism rather broadly across the centuries and perhaps even the millennia here. Is in terms of the order of presentation is richard bach jensen. Rick is a professor of history at Northwestern State university. Trained as a modern historian and 19th and 20th century italy. Rick has broadened his research and looks comparatively at european and transatlantic history. His looked at anarchism and terrorism. Cambridge University Press published his book and 2014. Was the theory and practice of italian public. Ecurity policy he has been the recipient of two fulbright awards in europe. Inarticle just came out terrorism and Political Violence. The chapter he contributed to the routledge history of terrorism. Chronologically is rob larabee she is the author of a new book in the wrong hands, covered by. Xford University Press in 2015 see, we are all over the place in terms of our interests and the angle at which we have come to the study of terrorism. Comments reef my to set the framework here and throw out some questions that i know are going to be addressed in the presentation and that i am eager to have folks respond to. When we get into the discussion part of the roundtable. Know there is divide thats between thoseable who work on terrorism, and those who come at it from the social scientist. In terms of the development of terrorism studies there has not been a lot of overlap or not as much as the can and should have been. It is also because of competing in thelogies and agendas public sector. Hand, historians and those in the humanities their strength is they can look at terrorism dynamically. It something that has transformed over the centuries. And emphasize that terrorism is not static and that to make sense of terrorism, one has to think of it in terms of a withcular context particular actors and particular circumstances. Historians of terrorism often work in isolation, one from another often reinventing the wheel. When they look at terrorists and terrorist actors convinced that they found something unique but often not really aware of what is going on over the hedge social sciences tend to be so they are keen to find the similarities and the differences over time but unfortunately and ironically, social scientists tend to start from the definition and work outward to put together that data set that allows them to draw conclusions. Definition tends to be entistt just or pres oriented. End with the definition or see it as one that is constantly evolving. Are certain weaknesses that tend to make it difficult for historians and social scientists to Work Together productively. Definition, you have to have some kind of definition. Im not original and what ive come up with, the routledge the consensus definition of terrorism is a great place to start. The tendency of terrorism is to use violence of the few to influence the behavior of the to really identify something as terrorism, we have to 33 we have to see three elements, the perpetrator, the act against the few, and the response from the many. Can a simple definition give historians the framework to be comparative over centuries and indeed millennia and across the continent . Or is this the desperate act of a historian who says he does not embrace definitions to pedal through the back door a definition. Perhaps one that might satisfy a social scientist but one that may or may not be productive. When can we use a simple definition like this that relies on a bear number of criteria to provide a framework for discussion. How might that definition help us explore and appreciate some of the thorniest problems we can find in the field of the history of terrorism and terrorism studies . The first is the question of state terror versus substate terrorism. Im convinced that any framework for making sense of terrorism that doesnt let us appreciate state terror as a kind of one that is not satisfying or productive and incomebecause them focused on terror x that lead to the death or injury of dozens or dreds tragic and focused on terror acts that lead to the death or injury of dozens or hundreds tragic as that , it leaves us talking at ing at thes of gawk deaths of hundreds and leaving aside state terror that can lead to the death of millions. Theink of stalin who said, death of hundreds is a tragedy and the deaths of millions is a statistic. We question is, how can relate state terror to substate terrorism . This raises another thorny question. Terrorism, about whether state or sub state in eras and places where he cannot even identify a state in the modern sense of the word. Societymply substitute and dominant population, can we speak of terrorism before the modern understanding of the state let alone modern technology, communications and so forth. Anwe look at terrorism in era without the modern spate, does the difference between state and substate terrorism melts away and we can have a single unitary understanding of terrorism or can we even productively see it and discuss it as such . Another distinction that we hear and read about all the time is the difference between terrorism and counterterrorism which sounds like a tidy distinction but it covers up a real model, which is that there are three ways to appreciate counter terrorism. One is to think of what is often discussed in terms of , the efforts for harden targets to prevent terror versus counter terrorism, the efforts to use lethal violence to go after those who engage in terrorism, versus the notion of counterterror which is the use of what will might call terrorism against those populations that would be recruited into organizations that use terror. For example the tactics the french used in algeria during the algerian war of independence. Which to my way of thinking becomes indistinguishable from terrorism in important ways and state terror. Another question, looking at terrorism versus other , we canes of violence speak about crime and war, and guerrilla warfare. Insurgency. Who are we fighting, where and when . Are they guerrilla fighters . Are they insurgents . Bethis a misguided effort to politically correct and not call anyone a terrorist . Or is there something substantial . I think there is something substantial. Insurgents do not really know what they are saying, particularly in the media and public discourse. The distinction between insurgency and terrorism is important because it reminds us that insurgency is a strategy that uses a certain kind of tactics. Drawing the distinction is important because it keeps keeps us from being overly reductive. Those engaged in an insurgency might use terrorism in a strategy. I think we might be able to move the ball farther down the field if we stop using the word terrorist. Nobody is simply a terrorist. One might be an anarchist, a communist, a socialist whatever it might be, that uses terrorism and terror. Im interested in seeing how this might play out. That is far more than i wanted to talk. Lets get into times, and places and context that make it possible to talk about terrorism. My thanks first and foremost to randy for inviting me to participate in this collective work and following it in today bistro roundtable. I have read throughout the book and sent it to parents to see what my more modern colleagues had to teach me. It is an ongoing discovery. Hand, in hissk at classic study, the great orian warned us about as a walking morality tale to what happens when you ignore good advice. It seems important to follow for a minute the trail that he laid down which saw firsthand some of the realities of warfare and terrorism. First at the hands of the French Resistance and sadly and tragically at the hands of the gestapo on the normandy beaches. I take heart today, his admonition that we avoid explanation of the very recent in terms of the remotest past. Whether were talking about near beginnings are the cause of the thing and he noted the intertwining, a serious study of the medieval period. Activity, grecoroman it does that give us terrorism as we enact today. I am already beginning to flex on that a little bit thanks to randys comments. I had to rent my head around the problem of defining terrorism. To a probably as close terrorism expert as you might find amongst medievalists. Randy notes quite rightly that contact for any interactive force must be analyzed before the label of terrorism can be applied. Pieces for many contending definitions of terrorism can find prefiguration in antiquities and the middle ages. We have plenty of that in the premodern world. Or acts whose purpose is to intimidate the population. Feargenerating, coercive Political Violence. Checkmarks galore. But it does not fit when we consider these and similar definitions. How do we assess direct violence without legal or moral restraints across several restraints across centuries when these restraints were being constructed for the first time. Or the definition of a civilian when these countries did not have distinctions like our own between civilian and regular military lives. Chapter, these are the ideas were modern definitions came into play even theout moving through definitions that form modern terrorism. This is true as we look at medieval violence through the filter opposed moments ago and throughout the rutledge text that violence be analyzed for its symbolic, informative, and communicative violence. If i give the ancient world deserved moment in the propose wei move to find strong candidates for state terrorism and examples for syria, sparta or rome. The syrians on text exalts direct violence against their foes with the bodies of victims left on display as a message. In spartas case im thinking of the original secret police. The anonymous men who had Carte Blanche to remove those whom they felt might become problematic. In this time, nighttime murders were an exhibit of negative space. The quiet exhibit magnified its message to the helots. Given that it was meant to instill fear and reshape the fabric of society, it of tales onto paulsils definition of state terrorism. , it was at a moment of breakdown and Public Authority in age and judea that we see one of the clearest precursors of modernday icari. Ism, the saqq once we move into the middle ages, things get murky and typology tends to fail. Because of the blurring between public and private authority. This is less the cased in the middle east. The most famous case of seeming premodern terrorists, the new were a first at unit sect who turned political tools to offset the advantages of their foes who had the entire state apparatus turn against them. Despite the fact they had surgicallyns moved against generals, and officials who opposed them. Victims ininnocent the confused swarm of bodies as they sought to escape after a hit. While the attacks were informative, they did not seek innocent victims for shock value. Door open left the for private forms of coercion which gained legitimacy. In these centuries, selfhelp justice and protection rackets were necessary for survival. Roman ideas of just war were mixing with the more band you germanic e with the arriving germanic ethos. Limit myself to highlighting the emergence of the peace of god and truce of god movements which were trying to use the churchs moral weight to curb violence. The peace of god was declared the unarmed population offlimits. These ideas were greatly popular with the people at large, but the adherents of the armed elite was problematic. This is the way to begin a fight, declare the count of flanders, 1773. Let it all be consumed in fire and flames, do not leave them so much as will furnish them a meal on the second day. This was a tactic of professional warriors in the 12th century and it got and beyond. Campaigns were as destructive as contemporary complained, we can hardly imagine. When tax agents granted multiyear exemptions because of wartime ravages, you know it was thorough. Word was meant to get out. We make sure the destruction of Northern England was publicized. Jerusalem,ities like their own accounts that did not in thecenturies later, midst of the 100 years war, the paradigm had not changed much. One man admitted in his will that he had killed some peasants, molested churchmen, and held some for ransom. The sins of others were outlined in more detail, noting the murder of women and children, multiple rapes, the destruction of church properties, along with many other crimes. These men were in search of pardon for these transgressions. Maybe the message, if not the practice, was beginning to seep in. I would suggest it was the the these details that would tell and whatwas activity, went beyond the simply terrible aspects of warfare into the realm of atrocity. About who was a permissible target, and it was not. And it was one of the reasons they were so shocked by different paradigms of war, honor, and terrorist found in the new world. [applause] i want to thank randy for putting this panel together, the volume for which it is grown. Brief, and look forward to discussion for some of these ideas. Explain my involvement in a project like this. This asked me to write chapter, it was nice to be asked. I said yes. This implications of that yes begin to sink in, it became clear this was not a reference work you could knock off in a couple of weeks and move on to your actual work. It would require serious thought and if not Archival Research to back up your ideas. After the initial free out, started to think about the recent popular fascination with terrorism. And what a careful consideration of early american terror might entail. We are very familiar with the pundit classes language of terror, things like why do they hate us . What do we do to them . Why do that use those sorts of tactics and so on . My academic career has focused on early american violence, specifically in the southeast. Where you have ancient societies, then their descendents, then europeans, africans, natives, all of which are dissatisfying shorthands. They are all using violence in varying ways. Though european violence comes to dominate the scene eventually. Thought therei have been various uss and wes and theys. As far back as we can see into the american past, these things of taken place. Its important to knowledge that. It also calls into question certain mythologies about our nations past, but is not enough to catalog a number of violent aredents, say they terrifying, and then say see, American History is the history of terrorism. May may work on twitter, it work on the internet, but is not satisfying as an academic endeavor. And overbroad definition of terrorism not that helpful. On the other hand, if we follow a rigid checklist of things that must be present to make an incident terrorism, and exclude any event not meeting all of we riskiteria, overlooking possible terrorism for the lack of one component or another. Inre are issues that arise describing things as terrorist before the term was coined, or entered into something approaching its modern usage. To say nothing of the fact that many institutions or ideas that affect our understanding of , nonstatestate actors, what is public, what is private, who was a noncombatant, who was a civilian, and so on. These ideas may or may not apply at various points in the past as randy and stephen pointed out so far. I dont know if the approach i took in the essay was the best approach. I am certain it is not the only approach to the subject matter. But want to use the remainder of my remarks to sketch out some of the broad beams of terror in early america. In essence, to apply terror as a lens through which to view early American History. I was charged with writing an essay from the colonial period to john brown, and i moved the chronology back somewhat. Recognizing the danger of applying modern terms, i scanned incidents of violence, incidents that seems to focus in their own times and something approaching the way terrorism functions in our own time. That led to be troubling. These acts are designed to to terrorize. There is usually a heavy symbolic component to the violence being perpetrated, and there is usually the employment of provocative tactics. In the service of a larger strategy. We discussed this in the back and forth, but i think one of the most important things this volume does is to begin to think about terrorism beyond just a set of tactics, but the larger strategic implications of terror in history. If you are thinking about terrorism in agent america contest in ancient america, enough to knowledge the presence and work against the presence of two powerful stereotypes. One of which is to romanticize early