The book feels like a 2.5-day cruise of all Europe: glitzy and with
style but ultimately shallow and unsatisfying.

The title is catchy. Davis' prose is lively and pithy. This book
however, does not measure up to his earlier works such as "Prisoners
of the American Dream". I think the problem is with the subject
itself. All Davis' discussion to the contrary, a car bomb is a
relatively unsophisticated device. One bomber does not have much to
learn from another: some fertilizer, fuel oil, a detonator and a
stolen car and one has a poor-man air-force. Thus, it is difficult to
cover the history of a car bomb from a purely technical
perspective. Like one could do with, for example, fighter planes or
assault rifles. The action of a car bomb is pretty similar so there is
little to describe: a loud bang, smoke, flying debris and body parts,
mangled and bloodied people wringing in agony. Davis tries to be
discreet in his explosion descriptions, yet it gets repetitive by the
end of the book.

So the car bombs is a ruthless and indiscriminate tactic employed by
guerrillas of all stripes. The most fascinating aspect of the carbombs
is social. Why does a certain group or a movement chose to use
carbombing? And this is where Davis falls short. The format of the
book does not allow him to describe in detail each individual
movement. Instead, he tries to quickly and impartially describe the
movement and proceed to the bombing itself. The effect however is that
he lumps together the truly progressive independence movements with
the cults like Sendero Luminoso and everything in between. He does,
however, cite good books that cover each individual conflicts in
sufficient enough detail to explain the causes, the reasons and the
dynamic of the struggle in each individual case: "The Vietnam Wars
1945-1990" by Marilyn B. Young, "A Secret History of the IRA" by Ed
Moloney, or "Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon" by Robert
Fisk. The facts about the conflicts that I am not familiar with such
as the details about the Stern Gang of Palestine and Arab reprisals
are quite interesting. The coverage of the ongoing conflict in Iraq is
certainly incomplete, Davis' coverage of it feels truncated.