Political Parties and Terrorist Groups. By Leonard Weinberg and Ami Pedahzur. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. 179p. $125.

Religious Fundamentalism and Political Extremism. Edited by Leonard Weinberg and Ami Pedahzur. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2004. 178p. $115 cloth, $37.79 paper.

Two decades ago, Christopher Hitchens denounced the use of the label “terrorist” as a Medusa's head, which unveiled would “turn all discussion into stone…. Whisk, whisk … and there goes history, there goes inquiry, there goes proportion” (“Wanton Acts of Usage,” Harper's, September 1986, p. 68). Perhaps most social concepts, embedded as they are in wider communities of shared meaning beyond the arena of scholarly discourse, prove susceptible to rhetorical corruption as they become weapons of political denigration. The degradation of the concept of terrorism, however, seems especially severe. Add religious fundamentalism into the discourse, and our expectations sink even further.