Our world today is as dangerous and mixed-up as it has ever been. Luckily we have Michael Burleigh to help us make sense of it.' - Mail on SundayIn Day of the Assassins, acclaimed historian Michael Burleigh examines assassination as a special category of political violence and asks whether, like a contagious disease, it can be catching. Focusing chiefly on the last century and a half, Burleigh takes readers from Europe, Russia, Israel and the United States to the Congo, India, Iran, Laos, Rwanda, South Africa and Vietnam.

And, as we travel, we revisit notable assassinations, among them Leon Trotsky, Hendrik Verwoerd, Juvenal Habyarimana, Indira Gandhi, Yitzhak Rabin and Jamal Khashoggi. Combining human drama, questions of political morality and the sheer randomness of events, Day of the Assassins is a riveting insight into the politics of violence.