LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
This most certainly isn’t just a fright-fest, it is an intelligent, interesting foray into the world of assassinations. Featuring over 100 cases from Julius Caesar to President Kennedy, we explore the victims and assassins themselves as well as failed assassinations. Just as a word of warning, this book is also full of photos relating to their history (including in some cases the dead victims). The chapters highlight geographic areas, before near the end, there is the eye-opening section on investigative journalists. The move through time from individual assassins to political and religious terrorists, and state sponsored killings is examined. British politician and author Kenneth Baker states that: “All assassins believe that by killing their target they will change the world”. He has personally known eight people who were assassinated, including two who were personal friends, and says: “their deaths did not change history”. He: “wanted to explore whether the assassination of other public figures had resulted in a poisoned chalice for the assassin”. On Assassinations is a quality book, and while this may sound somewhat macabre, it would actually make an excellent gift for those interested in exploring these savage moments of history.
Liz Robinson
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On Assassinations Synopsis
In this revealing look at the history of assassinations, Kenneth Baker examines over a hundred political and religious murders or attempted murders, ranging from Julius Caesar to President Kennedy to Osama bin Laden.
Assassins hope to change the world, but rarely succeed: Baker concludes that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 was the only one that changed the history of the world. Other assassinations, whether of monarchs, politicians, dissidents, clerics, journalists or others at best give only a glancing blow at history. The author concludes that, in Macbeth's words, an assassination `is a poisoned chalice.'
Kenneth Baker also reveals that since 1945 there have been fewer individual assassins working alone; now assassinations are more likely to be carried out by political and religious terrorists, or by the security services of certain states to eliminate dissidents. Not only Russia and Israel, but the USA, the UK and others have resorted to targeted killings when they consider their security is under threat. On Assassinations shows how we have moved from the era of individual assassinations, through to terror groups' murders and now onto state-sponsored targeted killings
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Press Reviews
Kenneth Baker Press Reviews
[Baker] has put together this compendium of more than a hundred political murders, from Julius Caesar to Gandhi, from Lincoln to Kennedy and Trotsky to Osama bin Laden. What emerges is a potpourri of intrigue and accident, miscalculation and just plain evil. In many cases, luck played a large part: a chance turn of events without which a murder plot would never have succeeded. . . . Baker, whose long political career included spells as Environment Secretary, Education Secretary and Home Secretary before taking him to the House of Lords, succinctly summarises each assassination and searches for a common thread between them. --
Daily Mail (UK)
Author
About Kenneth Baker
Kenneth Baker, Lord Baker of Dorking CH, is a British politician and a former Conservative MP having served in the Cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major as Environment Secretary, Education Secretary and Home Secretary. He has previously written five poetry anthologies for Faber, five books on the history of cartoons including George III: A Life in Caricature and George IV: A Life in Caricature, his memoirs, The Turbulent Years, and most recently On the Burning of Books and On the Seven Deadly Sins published by Unicorn
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