Anna Geifman
Anna Geifman | |
---|---|
Russian revolutionary movements | |
Spouse | Divorced |
Scientific career | |
Fields | History |
Institutions | Boston University, Bar-Ilan University |
Doctoral advisor | Richard Pipes |
Anna Geifman is an American
Biography
Geifman was born in 1962 in
She is a professor of history at Boston University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on the history of imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, psychohistory, and modern terrorism.
Geifman researches and writes on 20th- and 21st-century fundamentalist terrorism, emphasizing psychological patterns of political violence through comparative analysis. As psychohistorian, she focuses on incentives for extremist behavior and the impact of organized brutality on the daily lives and emotional conditions of civilians in areas that are affected by terrorism.
She has lived in Israel since 2007 and works at Bar-Ilan University.
Intellectual positions
Geifman has introduced the comparison between the pre-revolutionary Russian terrorist groups and the contemporary perpetrators of Islamist violence into the conversation on terrorism.[1] [2] She maintains that in various parts of the world, including the Middle East, the decentralized, informal network of combat cells is very much like the network of pre-revolutionary Russian terror organizations that often operated without strong connections with one another, beyond the fact that all were inspired by similar nihilist, destructive (and self-destructive) attitudes.[3]
Geifman downplays the importance of revolutionary ideologies, focusing not on the intellectual but on the psychological aspects of terrorism, which she relates to the perpetrators' difficulties in dealing with
In Geifman's opinion, the idea that taking on the responsibilities of government will moderate groups like
According to Geifman, Hamas's first victims are the
Books
- Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia, 1894–1917. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
- Russia under the Last Tsar: Opposition and Subversion, 1894–1917. Edited volume, with introduction and one article contributed. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
- Entangled in Terror. The Azef Affair and the Russian Revolution. Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 2000.
- La mort sera votre dieu! Du nihilisme russe au terrorisme islamiste. Paris: La Table Ronde, 2005.
- Death Orders: The Vanguard of Modern Terrorism in Revolutionary Russia. Praeger Security International, 2010.
References
- ^ TERRORISM; Finding Who Is Responsible When No Group Takes Credit, Anna Geifman, Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1996
- ^ Does Hamas vs Fatah = Bolsheviks vs Mensheviks? By , Jerusalem Post, Aug. 3, 2008 [1][permanent dead link]
- ^ a b c d The Bolsheviks of Gaza, by Sam Ser, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 18, 2008[permanent dead link]