Abstract

After a brief sketch of kinds of threat typical of pre-modern and modern societies, an attempt is made to describe and understand the kinds of threat which are typical of postmodern societies in a globalized world. Terrorism, the postmodern threat par excellence, depends on the deep but at the same time paradoxical hostility of certain traditional groups vis-à-vis a postmodern society they can no longer escape, and against which they are willing and able to use its own high-tech weaponry