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  • Editor's Introduction
  • Arthur Versluis

Welcome to the second issue of JSR's eleventh year. Our issue has several themes that intersect in various ways. First, we include a landmark study of "eco-terrorism" that clearly concerns a global phenomenon. Second, we have an article on Maoism in Portugal, again highly international, and third, we have several articles on African-American radicalism, followed by a conversation between Ramona Africa, Morgan Shipley, and Jack Taylor, and five book reviews.

This issue begins with an extensive study of what Michael Loadenthal refers to as "eco-terrorism," in quotation marks because he examines in detail a timeline that includes more than 27,000 events to determine the extent to which "terrorism" accurately describes the activities of various animal and earth liberation movements and their largely autonomous cells. He concludes that the label "eco-terrorism" when applied to these groups' activities is often misleading when their activities present "no risk to human life." To demonstrate clearly the methodology for this landmark study, we also include his database and related apparatus. It is a lengthy but important set of documents, and we publish it not only because of its reviewers' endorsements, but also to further the larger conversation about what we can categorize as the rhetoric of terrorism.

In our second article, Miguel Cardina explores how Maoism made its way into Portugal during the "long sixties," and how the far left and the Estado Novo dictatorship overlapped during this period. What are the [End Page v] relationships between dictatorship and the radicalized far left? Symbiotic as well as oppositional? Cardina's account gives us insight into such dynamics.

In the third article, Andrew Baer discusses the radical movement seeking to abolish the death penalty in Illinois, which was directly linked to the International Socialist Organization, and in the fourth article, Nick Sciullo discusses not only George Jackson's 1964 letter to his father, but the larger themes of the Black Power Movement, prison activism, and African-American radicalism.

These articles tie into this issue's conversation with well-known Philadelphia radical activist Ramona Africa, discussing not only the MOVE phenomenon and its history, but also its spiritual impetus and its religious aspects. And the issue concludes with a series of book reviews that I think you will find of considerable variety and interest, ranging as they do from "framing a radical African Atlantic" to internationalism, orientalism, and feminism in the Vietnam era to radicalism and the music of skinheads, animal rights activists, and other perhaps surprisingly musical movements.

As always, JSR seeks to provide a forum for the scholarly and dispassionate analysis of radicalism of many kinds, and from many different perspectives. We continue to welcome a steady stream of excellent articles, and remain the only journal in the world that focuses on the full range of political, social, and religious forms of radicalism. You may expect the following themes to play a role in forthcoming issues: anarchism, ecological radicalism, global activist networks and movements, anti-modernism, the rhetoric of "fascism," and an article on a little-known but quite interesting chapter of American radicalism that may well surprise you precisely because you've not heard of it before. We have articles for more than a year, but continue to welcome your queries, submissions, and shared conversation about these various currents of radical political and religious movements and individuals.

Thank you for supporting our journal, and we hope you enjoy this issue. [End Page vi]

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