Summary

The sixth chapter of Age of Anger begins with an in-depth analysis of the American terrorist Timothy McVeigh’s psyche. McVeigh killed 168 people and wounded many more by leaving a bomb in a truck beneath a building, and the author draws parallels between this act and those committed by other terrorists from vastly different backgrounds, including Muslim terrorists. McVeigh “presented himself as a besieged defender of the American Constitution. He placed himself in the tradition of the small band of patriots who wished to defend liberty and freedom from government oppression” (282) and wrote about his thoughts on political and social repression he saw existing in the United States. He railed against the death of the ‘American Dream,’ the poverty of many Americans, the killing done by Americans abroad, etc. The author says that “many over-educated terrorists...