Grounds for Optimism

When a terrorist attack takes place in a Western country, there is a perception that society is under attack, and a connected perception that terrorism is on the rise. Despite attempts to prove otherwise, the prominence of terrorist events in the media nurtures the belief that we are at increasing risk from an enemy whose sole aim is to destroy our freedoms and our way of life. However, if we look back over the past decades, we can see that the picture is far more complicated. The author explored the data regarding the frequency of terrorist attacks globally to see whether terrorist activity has indeed increased over the past five decades and what patterns or trends can be discerned from this information.