Robert N. Proctor, is an American historian of science. He is a Professor of the history of science at Stanford University. In 1999 he was the first historian to testify against the tobacco industry. Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition draws on reams of formerly-secret industry documents to explore how the cigarette came to be the most widely-used drug on the planet, with six trillion sticks sold per year. He paints a harrowing picture of tobacco manufacturers conspiring to block the recognition of tobacco-cancer hazards, even as they ensnare legions of scientists and politicians in a web of denial. To order Robert's book from Amazon click here.

Of course, this is precisely what suicide bombers do: immolate themselves for a noble cause (in opposition to the rule of Western "infidels").

We may like the cause for which Tibetan's immolate themselves; and dislike the cause for which suicide bombers immolate themselves.

However, theoretically, each case is identical: immolating oneself (sacrificing one's life or dying) for what the individual believes is a worthwhile cause.

We must approach political violence as anthropologists, indeed as cross-cultural anthropologist: seeking to identify commonalities in different societies and among different historical cases.

Each of these cases fall under the rubric of dying or sacrificing oneself for a sacred object or sacred idea, which

I have written about here.

Scott Atran has written about here.

Michael Vlahos has written about here.

And Paul Kahn has written about here.

Best regards,

Richard Koenigsberg