America’s Use of Terror: From Colonial Times to the A-Bomb. By Stephen Huggins (Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2019) 368 pp. $39.95

Abstract

Huggins’ book is a detailed retelling of the United States’ use of violence against non-combatants. It advances two central arguments—first, that states, not just non-state actors, commit terrorism and, second, in the deliberate targeting of non-combatants, the United States is no exception. Like other nationalities, Americans have often attacked non-combatants when it suits their interests. In defending these positions, Huggins uses clear argumentation and highly accessible case studies from U.S. history.The first argument hinges on Huggins’ definition of terrorism as the deliberate attacking of non-combatants to alter their political will. He rules out both wanton, apolitical violence and genocide as neither act is about coercion but about revenge or sadism and extermination, respectively. Given the many competing definitions of terrorism in the legal, academic, and policy worlds, the addition of a new definition is neither necessary nor surprising. Still, Huggins’ view is worth considering as it has significant consequences for our understanding of political violence.Although Huggins’ definition prevents states from escaping the label of terrorism and aids in impugning immoral state actions, it muddies our understanding of violent behavior. Are aerial bombardment, state repression, lynchings, the burning of Native American villages, and the 9/11 attacks all best understood as one and the same phenomenon? Certainly they are all coercive acts centered on the repugnant killing of non-combatants. However, racial violence, state repression, and warfare have varying logics and are often studied separately. It is unclear that the strategic calculations of white supremacists, al Qaeda, Curtis LeMay, and George Custer are the same. Hence, although defining terrorism broadly aids condemnations of state actions and highlights them as forms of coercion, it clouds our understanding of the strategic thinking underlying these various forms of political violence. Huggins’ book makes clear that such trade-offs are inherent to any definition of terrorism and thus inescapable. Whether the gains from Huggins’ definition are worth the losses depends on readers’ interests.Huggins has a much easier time making his second argument. Through detailed case studies ranging from the 1600s to the 1940s, he shows that the U.S. government and private U.S. citizens have regularly attacked non-combatants, especially if they perceived those non-combatants as racial or ideological others. He covers a wide variety of instances, including wars with Native Americans, the repression of slaves in antebellum America and of blacks under Jim Crow, the use of torture in the Philippines, and the firebombing of Axis cities in World War II. Although these cases do not break new historical ground, having them all in one book makes for powerful, if grim, reading. They also make a compelling case against American exceptionalism—the theory that the United States is fundamentally different and better than other nations.Huggins sometimes includes attacks arguably outside his definition of terrorism. For instance, many campaigns against Native American tribes were genocidal in nature, and some of the detailed atrocities appear to have been acts of wanton violence driven by rage, rather than calculated political acts. He also occasionally references unintentional, collateral casualties, such as civilian victims during the siege of Vicksburg. His definition, however, could easily be modified to include such acts. The central point about Americans not being exceptional stands.Ultimately, the book is important for two reasons: (1) It forces Americans to come to terms with some of the more unsavory elements of their history, and (2) it illustrates that definitions of contentious concepts like terrorism shape how we analyze the world. In the absence of no singular, correct definition of terrorism, Huggins’ more expansive conception highlights the ways in which states often parallel or exceed the brutal actions of non-state groups in their attacks on non-combatants. For these reasons, the book is well worth reading.