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Uncivil Disobedience: Studies in Violence and Democratic Politics. By Jennet Kirkpatrick. (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, c. 2008. Pp. [xii], 139. Paper, $22.95, ISBN 978-0-691-13877-0; cloth, $40.00, ISBN 978-0-691-13709-4.)
In this book Jennet Kirkpatrick seeks "to make sense of America's violent history and its place within democratic theory" (p. x). By examining the motives of four groups of "uncivil disobethents" - the militia movement, frontier vigilantes, southern lynch mobs, and militant abolitionists - she attempts to demonstrate that democratic ideals such as "liberty, rights, and direct civic participation" have inspired domestic terrorism throughout American history (p. 3). "What's more," she says, "these violent groups were not opposed to democracy. Indeed, democratic ideas nurtured and legitimated their terrorism" (p. 1). Consequently, Kirkpatrick argues, the United States should reconsider its "push to spread democracy elsewhere" (such as...