Reviews: (by author)

Landau, Elaine. Suicide Bombers: Foot Soldiers of the Terrorist Movement. Minneapolis: Twenty-first Century, 2006. ISBN # 0-7613-3470-X. $31.93. Ages 12-18. Grades 7-12. www.lernerbooks.com www.elainelandau.com

Landau takes a critical look at why suicide bombers do what they do. She humanizes them, allowing us a glimpse into their hearts and minds. She discusses these people’s lives, making very clear that people’s reasons for becoming suicide bombers are complex.

She cites the examples of suicide bombers in Palestine and Iraq, discussing how oppression, personal struggles including depression, and economic hardship are sometimes motivating factors. Others might be motivated by religious beliefs and fundamental extremism. Youths are often recruited by terrorist groups or seduced by heroic images of suicide bombers who are often referred to as martyrs in their own culture. An appropriate title for the book would have been Men, Women and Children: The Faces of Suicide Bombers.

The book has a chapter on “Recruiters and Trainers” and a chapter about the families of suicide bombers. Landau consistently reminds readers that even suicide bombers and their families suffer. In the chapter about the World War II Japanese Kamikaze pilots, she includes a number of letters Kamikaze pilots wrote to their families, describing their mixed emotions about what they were about to do. The last chapters cover September 11th and the recent global outbreak of terrorist attacks.

Elaine Landau writes compassionately about her subject without downplaying the impact of the suffering suicide bombers cause or condoning what they do. Also, she makes astute observations about who and what she has studied. For example, she critiques the obvious inconsistencies in what terrorist leaders claim and what they do. Although they claim their causes are worth dying for, they have yet to sacrifice their own lives or the lives of those closest to them:

On the whole, suicide bombers tend to be fairly young, while the organization leaders are often more mature and politically savvy. It might be argued that extremist organizations cannot afford to blow up their top people because the group needs their leadership ability and strategizing skills. Yet interestingly, the children of the movement’s leaders rarely become suicide bombers either. Often these children are sent far from the “battle zone” areas where danger and deprivation characterize everyday life. (p.48)

You can sense Landau’s anger towards these leaders and her sadness for the people who are lured into their web. Be ready for an emotional read as well as an informative one.

It is wonderfully obvious that Landau researched her topic in depth. She lists nineteen books in her Selected Bibliography and provides four pages of Source Notes. Impressive? I think so. In addition, the quotes she uses often come from published studies and scholars who have done original research on suicide bombers, such as “Anthropologist Scott Attan, a research director at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France” who “received funding from the National Science Foundation to interview would-be suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank” (p.44). You can tell that Landau took great care in writing this book.

Sometimes good people do very bad things. The haunting question is, why? Even as a grown-up I still have a difficult time figuring that out; I can’t imagine having to explain “why” to a child or young adult. But in Suicide Bombers: Foot Soldiers of the Terrorist Movement, Elaine Landau takes on the challenge of doing so, and she does an exceptional job.

Marie Soriano, June 2007

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