Putting Terrorism in Context: Lessons from the Global Terrorism Database

This book offers a guide to interpreting available statistical data on terrorism attacks around the world.

The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) now includes more than 113,000 terrorist attacks, starting in 1970. By analyzing these data, researchers demonstrate how a very small number of terrorist attacks have had an outsized effect on attitudes and policies toward terrorism. These attacks, referred to as ‘black swan’ events, are difficult to predict but have an enormous impact on human affair...