Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2025 — the story of the extremists who hijacked the 1970s, from one of the world's leading reporters on political violence.
In the 1970s, a new kind of figure seized the world's imagination: the international revolutionary. Hijackings, kidnappings, embassy sieges and bombings connected Beirut to Berlin, Tokyo to Tripoli — carried out by young militants who believed the world could be remade through spectacular violence, and whose faces became icons even as their victims multiplied.
Jason Burke — who has spent three decades reporting on political violence — traces this transnational web: the Palestinian factions and their European and Japanese allies, the celebrity terrorists like Carlos the Jackal, the states that armed and sheltered them, and the security order built in response. It is a gripping group portrait of a decade when radical politics turned global and lethal — and the origin story of the world we still live in.
Praise
“Astonishing.” — Rory Stewart
“Fabulously gripping.” — The Times
“Riveting.” — Lindsey Hilsum
About the author
Jason Burke is the Guardian's international security correspondent and the author of Al-Qaeda and The 9/11 Wars.
