Profiles in Terrorism, a bold new series on understanding terrorism, examines in depth the remarkable patterns, similarities and paradoxes in the personality profiles of historical terrorists.

Sofia Perovskaya, Terrorist Princess

The Plot to Kill Tsar Alexander II and the Woman Who Led It

The Narodnaya Volya were terrorists who emerged in Russia in the 1870’s. They developed a philosophical justification for murderous terrorist acts. They pioneered terrorist propaganda and the protoype of the terrorist organization.

Sofia Perovskaya is a classic study in the paradoxes of the terrorist. Her father was Governor of St. Petersburg. Tender with the sick, she was trained as a healer. Born to the aristocracy, Sofia was not a child of poverty or oppression. Yet, harnessing the power of asceticism to a stubborn personality and a strong, self-taught intellect, she evolved into the most dedicated of all the Narodnaya Volya terrorists. She led their most dramatic terror exploit, the death squad that assassinated Tsar Alexander II on March 1, 1881. Learn more…

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Profiles in Terrorism: Sofia Perovskaya Terrorist Princess

“Remarkably well-researched, examining the many ways in which the Russian radicals of the period were the first modern terrorists and how they supplied a template for others.”

Kirkus Indy Reviews

“Very readable and in general accurate.”

Walter G. MossProfessor Emeritus, Eastern Michigan University and author of Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and A History of Russia

“A perfect balance of historical context, cast of characters, action adventure, love stories, mortality and, of course, morality.”

Elizabeth ZellerbachRed Hills Reviews

“The parallels between Sofia and Osama bin Laden are striking. Both upper class, educated, and with plenty of opportunities. Both turned to violence to achieve their aims and created armies of followers to do the actual terrorism. Much like profiling serial killers, one can also profile terrorists. And Riggs’s series of books about them is off to a great start with Sofia Perovskaya and the period of time that produced and nurtured her. Recommended for students of violence and terrorism, world history, and cultural change.”

Bradley AllenSeattle Book Review

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John Wilkes Booth, The Tragic Actor Who Played Brutus to Lincoln’s Caesar

A true celebrity, he was the stage superstar of a family of stars, due to his singular combination of talent, personality, looks, and passion. John Wilkes Booth found himself blessed with phenomenal wealth and fame, yet threw it all away in the name of an inscrutable cause. Neither he nor his family ever owned a slave. Booth was empathic with flowers, insects and children, and yet, his destiny was to devise and lead a terrorist conspiracy that killed President Lincoln. Profiles in Terrorism will chronicle Booth’s melancholy, suicidal side, as well as his mysterious connection to his father, Junius Brutus Booth, an actor almost as famed for enigmatic flights of mental illness as he was for his Shakespearian genius.

John Brown, an Original American Terrorist

A biographer once summed him up: “He was a Dostoyevskian Yankee Puritan, as filled with violence as benevolence.” John Brown remains one of the controversial figures of American history. In our Profiles in Terrorism series, we unpack his intense personality: stubborn; ascetic; a self-righteous religious fanatic; unwilling to accept differing views; refusing to participate in a group or a political process; almost desperate in his thirst for martyrdom. He was gifted with great intelligence and energy. And yet, there hangs about John Brown the indescribable quality of a loser whose failures were related to a slight disconnect with reality. After two disastrous bankruptcies emerged his final profile, the enduring terrorist paradox that merges crusading saint with cold blooded murderer.

FROM THE BLOG

Sofia Perovskaya, Terrorist Princess

The Plot to Kill Tsar Alexander II and the Woman Who Led It

John Wilkes Booth, The Tragic Actor Who Played Brutus to Lincoln’s Caesar

John Brown, an Original American Terrorist

Ides of March Terrorist Fits Emerging Profile of the Terrorist

Youtube Suicide Shooter Was an Animal Rights Protester

Las Vegas Shooter Had Father Who Was Psychopath