Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination [Hardcover]

A deeply researched history of assassination in the modern world, from Franz Ferdinand to Osama bin Laden
 
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Leon Trotsky, Reinhard Heydrich, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Osama bin Laden, Qasem Soleimani: assassination—the murder of a specific individual by an organised conspiracy in pursuit of political ends—has rarely failed to grip the imagination.
 
In this incisive new history, Simon Ball shows how targeted political murder has become a tool of democratic states but also a key strategy of those who wish to topple them. Ball introduces us to the techniques of assassination and those who wield them, as well as the security regimes that have developed to prevent this violent practice. From the First World War and the age of empire to terrorism and the development of pilotless drones,Death to Orderplaces assassination at the heart of modern political history—and shows how it continues to impact our world.Mr. Balls catalog of killings and counterkillings is . . . convincing. Studying assassinations is indeed like running a razor blade down the history of international politics: the cut is narrow, but long and deep.Paul Miller-Melamed,Wall Street Journal

“Ball cautions against focusing too much on the assassins or even their victims. . . . His thrust is political: to examine how assassination functions as an instrument, and how states’ reactions to assassination shape its use.”—Dan Piepenbring,Harper’s Magazine

“An exceptionally erudite and detailed history of assassination, packed with research drawn from government archives across the world.”—Ian Thompson,New Statesman

“A thorough and gripping account of how humans are addicted to picking each other off. . . . Particularly acute on the political machinations behin