The literature relevant to the study of terrorism as a form of communication may be divided into a number of categories, differing in emphasis and approach, and also in target audience. In this Review of Literature, the major classes of relevant literature will be identified and their general characteristics assessed, followed for each category by a survey of specific works within that category. The general argument of this study is that terrorism, as a mode of communications, is also a form of warfare; therefore, the study of warfare, particularly in its communicative aspect ("sending a message" through military action or the threat of military action). Therefore, a portion of the literature on the art and history of war falls within the purview of this study. The literature of war is of course enormous; the works considered under that heading below are those that either focus on general doctrines which are applicable to war through terrorism as well as to forms of war more conventionally identified as such, or that make specific points useful to the development of the thesis of this study.
The other categories of literature relevant to this study are communications theory and the literature of terrorism. Communications theory per se is given only an extremely cursory consideration in this study, with the purpose of establishing only the general validity of treating actions, as opposed to the verbal or visual messages that we more conventionally understand to be communications, as falling within the domain of communication theory.
The literature of terrorism itself falls into four broad sub categories. The first is historical. This sub category comprises works that either discuss terrorism in the past, or the development of ideologies that have been associated with the political turmoil of the post World War II era, and which have thus played a part in creating the international political atmosphere in...