The Assassinations

The Assassinations
Author: James DiEugenio
Publisher: Feral House
Total Pages: 706
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0922915822

Edited by historian DiEugenio, "Probe" magazine was a most respected investigative journal on the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. "The Assassinations" is a collection of "Probe" articles that present possible answers to the enduring questions surrounding these events. Photos & illustrations.

Assassination Vacation

Assassination Vacation
Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2005-04-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0743282531

New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates and contributor to NPR’s This American Life Sarah Vowell embarks on a road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation’s ever-evolving political system and history. Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other—a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue—it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and—the author’s favorite—historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

Rise and Kill First

Rise and Kill First
Author: Ronen Bergman
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 784
Release: 2018-01-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0679604685

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first definitive history of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF’s targeted killing programs, hailed by The New York Times as “an exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject.” WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN HISTORY NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY JENNIFER SZALAI, THE NEW YORK TIMES NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Economist • The New York Times Book Review • BBC History Magazine • Mother Jones • Kirkus Reviews The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes preemptively. In this page-turning, eye-opening book, journalist and military analyst Ronen Bergman—praised by David Remnick as “arguably [Israel’s] best investigative reporter”—offers a riveting inside account of the targeted killing programs: their successes, their failures, and the moral and political price exacted on the men and women who approved and carried out the missions. Bergman has gained the exceedingly rare cooperation of many current and former members of the Israeli government, including Prime Ministers Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as high-level figures in the country’s military and intelligence services: the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the Mossad (the world’s most feared intelligence agency), Caesarea (a “Mossad within the Mossad” that carries out attacks on the highest-value targets), and the Shin Bet (an internal security service that implemented the largest targeted assassination campaign ever, in order to stop what had once appeared to be unstoppable: suicide terrorism). Including never-before-reported, behind-the-curtain accounts of key operations, and based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews and thousands of files to which Bergman has gotten exclusive access over his decades of reporting, Rise and Kill First brings us deep into the heart of Israel’s most secret activities. Bergman traces, from statehood to the present, the gripping events and thorny ethical questions underlying Israel’s targeted killing campaign, which has shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East, and the entire world. “A remarkable feat of fearless and responsible reporting . . . important, timely, and informative.”—John le Carré

Political Assassinations and Attempts in US History

Political Assassinations and Attempts in US History
Author: J. Michael Martinez
Publisher: Skyhorse
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2017-11-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1631440713

The long, dark history of political violence in the United States Violence has been employed to achieve political objectives throughout history. Taking the life of a perceived enemy is as old as mankind. Antiquity is filled with examples of political murders, such as when Julius Caesar was felled by assassins in 44 BCE. While assassinations and assassination attempts are not unique to the American way of life, denizens of other nations sometimes look upon the US as populated by reckless cowboys owing to a “Wild West” attitude about violence, especially episodes involving guns. In this book, J. Michael Martinez focuses on assassinations and attempts in the American republic. Nine American presidents—Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan—have been the targets of assassins. President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was also a target shortly before he was sworn into office in 1933. Moreover, three presidential candidates—Theodore Roosevelt, Robert F. Kennedy, and George Wallace—were shot by assailants. In addition to presidents and candidates for the presidency, eight governors, seven U.S. senators, nine U.S. House members, eleven mayors, seventeen state legislators, and eleven judges have been victims of political violence. Not all political assassinations involve elected officials. Some of those targeted, such as Joseph Smith, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., were public figures who influenced political issues. But their cases are instructive because of their connection to, and influence on, the political process. No other nation with a population of over 50 million people has witnessed as many political assassinations or attempts. These violent episodes trigger a series of important questions. First, why has the United States—a country constructed on a bedrock of the rule of law and firmly committed to due process—been so susceptible to political violence? Martinez addresses these questions as he examines twenty-five instances of violence against elected officials and public figures in American history.

Political Assassinations by Jews

Political Assassinations by Jews
Author: Nachman Ben-Yehuda
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0791496376

Ben-Yehuda presents an in-depth inquiry into the nature and patterns of political assassinations and executions by Jews in Palestine and Israel. Extensive empirical evidence is used to analyze the social construction of violent and aggressive human behavior, using a sociology of deviance perspective. Political assassinations and executions are placed within their particular cultural matrix to describe how this specific form of killing has been conceptualized as part of an alternative system of justice. "The taking of a human life is generally regarded as the ultimate evil. Given this fact, it is important to examine and understand how it is explained, justified, and cloaked in a 'vocabulary of motives.' Such acts are, in the author's words, 'socially constructed and interpreted,' dependent on the observer's location in a specific 'symbolic-moral universe.'Moreover, such acts (political assassination specifically) are manifestations of struggles that represent attempts to legitimate these world-views, rhetorical devices that serve to define 'boundary-markers' between such universes — moral crusades that attempt to validate one view vis-a-vis another. This general approach to political assassinations is original. Its application to assassinations by Israelis is original. The fact that the book is empirical marks it off from many speculations on the subject. A number of the author's findings make a distinct contribution.

Killing the President

Killing the President
Author: Willard M. Oliver
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2010-08-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313364753

This book offers an analysis of every American presidential assassination and various attempted assassinations, examining the events surrounding each event and the people involved. The assassinations and attempted assassinations of American presidents were pivotal events that reverberated throughout the nation, even in cases where the murder was botched. The individuals behind each plot are often fascinating studies in obsession and distorted perception of reality—like President James Garfield's assassin, who spent an extra dollar on the gun he chose for the act simply because it would look better in a museum display after the event. For the first time under one cover, this text offers a concise study of every presidential assassination, attempt, and rumor. Each chapter focuses on a single American assassination, providing an analysis of the president, the assassin, and the events that shaped their arrival at that place in time. The chapter then describes the assassination or attempt itself and the long-term impacts of the crime. Accounts of the more contemporary incidents involving Presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush especially demonstrate the evolution of the monumental task of protecting the U.S. president in a free and open society.

Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel

Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
Author: Dan Ephron
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2015-10-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393242102

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History and one of the New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of the Year. The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israel’s recent history, and one that fundamentally altered the trajectory for both Israel and the Palestinians. In Killing a King, Dan Ephron relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the two years leading up to the assassination, as one of them planned political deals he hoped would lead to peace, and the other plotted murder. "Carefully reported, clearly presented, concise and gripping," It stands as "a reminder that what happened on a Tel Aviv sidewalk 20 years ago is as important to understanding Israel as any of its wars" (Matti Friedman, The Washington Post).

Assassins’ Deeds

Assassins’ Deeds
Author: John Withington
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2020-11-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789143527

Assassins have been killing the powerful and famous for at least three thousand years. Personal ambition, revenge, and anger have encouraged many to violent deeds, like the Turkish sultan who had nineteen of his brothers strangled or the bodyguards who murdered a dozen Roman emperors. More recently have come new motives like religious and political fanaticism, revolution and liberation, with governments also getting in on the act, while many victims seem to have been surprisingly careless: Abraham Lincoln was killed after letting his bodyguard go for a drink. So, do assassinations work? Drawing on anecdote, historical evidence, and statistical analysis, Assassins’ Deeds delves into some of history’s most notorious acts, unveiling an intriguing cast of characters, ingenious methods of killing, and many unintended consequences.

Famous Assassinations of History

Famous Assassinations of History
Author: Francis Jhonson
Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2021-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Famous Assassinations of History by Francis Jhonson: Explore the gripping and controversial tales of some of history's most notable assassinations, as Francis Jhonson delves into the dark and intriguing events that shaped the course of nations and left an indelible mark on the world. Key points: Historical Significance: Gain a deeper understanding of the historical and political contexts surrounding famous assassinations, from Julius Caesar to Abraham Lincoln and beyond, as Jhonson meticulously examines the events leading up to each assassination, the motivations of the perpetrators, and the far-reaching consequences that ensued, providing readers with a comprehensive perspective on these pivotal moments in history. Human Drama and Intrigue: Delve into the human drama and intrigue that surround assassinations, as Jhonson unravels the webs of conspiracy, betrayal, and personal vendettas that often underlie these shocking acts, offering a gripping narrative that captivates readers and sheds light on the complex motivations and psychological profiles of both the assassins and their targets. Legacy and Historical Impact: Reflect on the enduring legacies and broader historical impact of assassinations, examining how these acts of violence shaped political landscapes, influenced social movements, and sparked changes in government policies, inviting readers to contemplate the long-lasting reverberations of these momentous events. Famous Assassinations of History by Francis Jhonson: Famous Assassinations of History, compiled by Francis Jhonson, is a captivating and thought-provoking book that delves into the dark side of human history. From Julius Caesar to Abraham Lincoln, from Martin Luther King Jr. to John F. Kennedy, Jhonson presents a collection of accounts detailing the most significant assassinations that have shaped the course of nations and left an indelible mark on society. Through meticulous research and vivid storytelling, he explores the motives, conspiracies, and aftermaths surrounding these tragic events. Famous Assassinations of History offers readers a glimpse into the complex web of political intrigue, personal vendettas, and societal upheaval that often surround these acts of violence. It is a gripping and informative read that sheds light on the fragility of power, the resilience of the human spirit, and the profound impact that individuals can have on the course of history.