When George W. Bush screamed `You're either with us or you're against us' in the war on terror' he eradicated the right of anyone to question his logic or challenge his new list of `terrorist' organisations. These included as diverse candidates as Colombian coca farmers, Basque separatists and Kashmiri independence fighters. Lazily bandied around, the emotive, political and inflammatory word 'terrorism' has accompanied everything from ecology, narcotics to nuclear weapons. But one would do well to recall George Orwell and `new speak' and to treat the headlines, the spin and the political justifications with the objectivity they deserve.

By infiltrating the most inaccessible political resistance groups over the past 20 years, Phil Rees has sought to understand what motivates the `terrorist' or `freedom fighter' and to balance this against the context of the current world events and the sweeping power of US military might. Through the sharing of refreshment and discussion with 'terrorists' in such diverse countries as Colombia, Algeria, Kosovo, UK, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Iran, Lebanon, France, Cambodia and Ireland, Rees was able to pierce the headlines, the propaganda and the official government line to discover the human story behind the faceless, hooded caricature. As entertaining and intriguing as it is polemic and timely, this is the only book that challenges our preconceptions of just what the word terrorist actually means and how dangerous a weapon it is.