My Life Is a Weapon: a Modern History of Suicide Bombing.(Brief Article)(Book Review)

MY LIFE IS A WEAPON: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing CHRISTOPHER REUTER, TRANS. FROM THE GERMAN BY HELENA RAGG-KIRKBY. Princeton Univ., $24.95 (240p) ISBN 0-691-11759-4

A book on suicide bombers has tire potential to be gripping and revelatory. With such a title as the one above, it's not unreasonable to expect a first-person account of the motivations of a would-be bomber or plenty of material taken from primary-source interviews. Unfortunately, this is not the book it presents itself to be. Instead, Reuter, a reporter for the German magazine Stern, provides a serviceable introduction to the modern history of suicide bombing by Hezbollah, Hamas, the Iranian …