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Francesco Benigno pulls apart the stereotypical image of the terrorist, identified in public opinion as an Islamic fundamentalist inspired by religious motives. Instead, he reconstructs the historical development of political violence beginning with the events of 1793-94, when "revolutionary terrorism" was born, a strategy which sought to mobilise the community sympathetic to its ideas and use terrorism as a means of combatting a stronger enemy. After the various attacks in the 19th century, inspired by nationalist ideas or anarchist propaganda, the 20th century was characterised by widespread forms of terror which did not distinguish between political/military targets and civilians. Benigno's analysis, based on a rich variety of sources, tends to privilege events and provides an almost encyclopaedic account of them, and so occasionally runs the risk of lumping together different phenomena. It is a stimulating, and at the same time contradictory work, maybe as a result of its excessive ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ana Lucia Araujo's book, Reparations for slavery and the slave trade. A transnational and comparative history, offers an extremely accurate examination of the various forms of reparations, either symbolic or material, which slaves and their descendents have been requesting for over two centuries for the suffering they experienced on the American Continent, but above all in the United States. Such forms of reparation represent an attempt to overturn the principle by which the freeing of a slave, considered as private property, had almost always led to the payment of a refund to the owner. The author illustrates in an effective manner how the slave trade and the practice of slavery, defined at the 2001 Durban Conference as 'crimes against humanity', has had long-lasting negative consequences for Black people, who are still the object of racial discrimination. The increasing number of requests for material compensation from representatives of the Black community in the United States, clearly demonstrates the current cronic absence of rights, either objectively or in relative terms, of Afro-Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]