Philobiblon

I’ve got a review of a book of that title over on Blogcritics. The book is a bit of a quick cut and paste job, assembling material from the media and academia on the subject, but that does produce a useful survey. Its general conclusion – unsurprising, but likely to be unpopular – is that there is nothing “special” about the women bombers. They have the same range of motivations and character traits as the males.

The really surprising piece of information is that the suicide bomb belt was actually invented for use by women, by the Tamil Tigers. Perhaps the first weapon of war specifically invented for women. (If you don’t count those tricksy little deringers women always wield in Western movies, but I’m not sure those were really serious weapons.)