Assassins: Assassinations that shook the world from Julius Caesar to JFK - Hardcover

The killing of holders of high office for a predetermined political or ideological purpose is a practice as old as power politics itself. Assassins tells the darkly sensational story of twenty centuries of political murder, from the Roman era to the present. It includes accounts of many of the most infamous assassinations in history, from the slaying of Julius Caesar in 44 BC to the shooting of President Kennedy in 1963. Drawing on the latest research, Dr Steven Parissien presents a richly entertaining sequence of case-studies of this, the ultimate method of regime change. Each elegantly written essay includes not only a gripping account of the assassination, its political context and consequences, but also a biographical profile of both the slayer and the slain. Assassins runs the full gamut of murderous methods and motivations - from multiple stabbing to suicide bombing to aerial attack, from dynastic overthrow to religious fanaticism to the 'propaganda of the deed'. Sometimes shocking, but always involving and informative, it offers a dramatic and distinctive perspective on more than two millennia of world history.

Julius Caesar. Emperor Caligula. Archbishop Thomas Becket. Duke Conrad of Montferrat. Lord Darnley. William I, the Silent. The Two Henries: Henry III of France and the Duke of Guise. Henry IV of France. 1st Duke of Buckingham. Gustav III of Sweden. Jean-Paul Marat. Tsar Paul of Russia. Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. President Abraham Lincoln. Alexander II of Russia. President James Garfield. Lord Frederick Cavendish. Empress Elisabeth of Austria. President William McKinley. Prime Minister José Canalejas. Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Grigori Rasputin. Chancellor Englebert Dollfuss. Alexander I of Yugoslavia. Governor Huey Long. Leon Trotsky. Reinhard Heydrich. Lord Moyne. Mohandas K. Gandhi. Count Folke Bernadotte. Faisal II of Iraq. Medgar Evers. President John F. Kennedy. Malcolm X. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. Martin Luther King. Robert F. Kennedy. Georgi Markov. George Moscone and Harvey Milk. Archbishop Oscar Romero. President Anwat el-Sadat. Benigno Aquino. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Ahmad Shah Massoud. Alexander Litvinenko. Postscript: Benazir Bhutto.