To those who believe that the ongoing war on terrorism against Islamic fanatics is a war without end or a war that can’t be won,  I suggest they read up on the anarchists’ 19th Century international terror campaign.

The Times of London published a good review of Alex Butterworth’s The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers and Secret Agents. The book covers the terror campaign of the anarchists, which lasted from 1871-1905.   

“History rarely rhymes, warns Alex Butterworth, let alone repeats itself,” James McConnachie writes in his review. “But in this rich and passionate account of the world’s first international terrorist campaign – as conducted by anarchist zealots between the Paris Commune of 1871 and the first Russian Revolution of 1905 – the disquieting echoes of our own times are impossible to ignore.”

The anarchists’ assassinations and bombings in the late 19th Century created a wave of terror, but the anarchists eventually faded out, just as I believe today’s Islamic terrorists will fade out if America and Western nations continue to stand up and counter them.     

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