Terrorism and America ─ A Commonsense Strategy for a Democratic Society

The bombings of the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City federal building haveshown that terrorist attacks can happen anywhere in the United States. Around the globe, massacres,hijackings, and bombings of airliners are frequent reminders of the threat of terrorism. The use ofpoison gas in the Tokyo subway has raised the specter of even more horrible forms of terror --including the use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.In this book, Philip Heymann arguesthat the United States and other democracies can fight terrorism while preserving liberty andmaintaining a healthy, unified society. Drawing on his experience in the US Departments of State andJustice, he shows how domestic and foreign intelligence-gathering can thwart terrorism, how theUnited States must cooperate and share information with its allies, and how terrorism can beprevented in many cases. Terrorism will never disappear completely, but the policies Heymann offerscan limit the harm to Americans and protect the integrity of US governmental processes.

Ester van der Voet is Associate Professor of Industrial Ecology in the Institute for Environmental Sciences at the University of Leiden. She is the coeditor of Heavy Metals: A Problem Solved?.