The first war on terror: What the fight against anarchism tells us about the fight against radical Islam.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: 'The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists & Secret Agents' by Alex Butterworth - Book review

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The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books, 482 pages, $30

In THE LATE 19th century, as today, a terrorist cabal detonated bombs in the heart of the Western world. Judged by the number of successful attacks on politicians and royalty, that force was more directly threatening to the inner circles of power than today's radical Islam.

This episodic violence, loosely associated with the extremist wing of the anarchist movement, lasted roughly from 1880 to 1910. It claimed the lives of only about 150 private citizens but also killed a president, a police chief, a prime minister, a czar, a king, and an empress. Yet the wave of terror eventually receded. No one has lived in mortal fear of bomb-throwing, dagger-clutching anarchists for nearly a century. Will citizens in 2110 view radical Islamic terrorism as a similar historical curiosity, useful mostly for colorful storytelling?

I don't know, and neither does Alex Butterworth, author of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents. The book is a detailed chronicle both of the anarchists--intellectuals and peaceful activists as well as terrorists--and of the cops and spies who set out to nab and crush them. It is irresistible, while contemplating this history in 2011, to look for analogies that might illuminate the current war on terror.

Butterworth, an English historian, brings up that comparison casually in the introduction. It feels like a last-minute addition to give a long tale of days gone by a ripped-from-the-headlines promotional hook. The author himself never returns to the idea. But perhaps the rest of us should.

The anarchists were considerably more precise in their attacks on political leaders, implying, perhaps, that they were more efficient, clever, or at least focused than today's more civilian-oriented terrorists. Although their plots never approached the scale of 9/11, they did outdo the Islamists when it came to the number of successful fatal attacks within Western cities.

Might smarter, more effective intelligence and policing in the 21st century explain the difference? Butterworth provides stories and data relevant to that question but no decisive answers. He does not, after all, have access to a century's worth of delayed revelations about our current twilight struggle. Still, the first war on terror does offer tantalizing...