Cinematic Terror takes a uniquely long view of filmmakers' depiction of terrorism, examining how cinema has been a site of intense conflict between paramilitaries, state authorities and censors for well over a century. In the process, it takes us on a journey from the first Age of Terror that helped trigger World War One to the Global War on Terror that divides countries and families today. Tony Shaw looks beyond Hollywood to pinpoint important trends in the ways that film industries across Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East have defined terrorism down the decades. Drawing on a vast array of studio archives, government documentation, personal interviews and box office records, Shaw examines the mechanics of cinematic terrorism and challenges assumptions about the links between political violence and propaganda.

The first history of cinema's treatment of terrorism from the birth of film to today.

Tony Shaw has produced an important and ground-breaking study of how cinema has represented international terrorism from the start of the twentieth century to the present. What particularly stands out about this excellent book is the breadth of its coverage and the historical rigour that Shaw brings to his subject. Cinematic Terror is both a highly original piece of film-historical scholarship and a very timely work that has relevance to the world today.