Terror, Spectacle and the Press: Anarchist Outrage in Edwardian England

Abstract

During the past decade the threat of Islamic extremism has reinvigo-rated the study of terrorism. Many of these studies, both popular and academic, have examined the historical roots of terrorism for lessons on present concerns. Following the London bombings of 7 July 2005, The Economist dedicated several feature articles to the history of terrorist violence. One article was entitled simply, yet provocatively, ‘For jihadist, read anarchist’. The implication, further explored in the article, was that the anarchist terrorism of the late nineteenth century could be used to understand, and even to define, more recent manifestations: ‘Bombs, beards, and backpacks: these are the distinguishing marks, at least in the popular imagination, of the terror-mongers who either incite or carry out the explosions that periodically rock the cities of the Western world. A century or so ago it was not so different: bombs, beards, and fizzing fuses.’¹ The article noted how, much like today, terrorism back then had given rise to public panic and periodic government ‘crackdowns’.