Terror and Consent is not an easy book to read, though it includes useful summaries along the way. It is strongest on the legal issues raised by war, less surefooted on the politics, and not at all interested in the gruesome detail of what terrorists actually do. For that, you need to read Michael Burleigh’s Blood and Rage. But Bobbitt’s more abstract approach is also useful, providing a conceptual framework within which to make sense of the West’s predicament. Terror and Consent is a major contribution to what one might call the theory of terrorism. Expertise in this field is vital, though not easy to come by. As Bobbitt observes, we have had a good many big ideas on international security in the last 20 years: “What is wrong with all these big ideas is that they were not in fact big enough.” Bobbitt’s ambition is to provide a grand, overarching theory of terrorism that embraces politics, strategy and law. It is a noble ambition and this is an important book that I recommend to anybody who is thinking about the long term. I am not sure that Bobbitt has all the right answers, but he has certainly asked many of the right questions. Whether the West will win the wars against terror that he foresees will indeed depend on preserving democratic consent for the measures we may be forced to take. But we shall only gain and keep that consent if people know what kind of civilisation it is that we are trying to preserve. That is the task of a magazine such as Standpoint.