Professor Martha Crenshaw of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford is an expert on terrorism. Following are three videos produced in 2014 that make up one lecture, jointly titled Understanding Terrorism.

The first video, What is Terrorism?, discusses definitions. The second, What Causes Terrorism, provides some very useful analysis. The third, Does Terrorism Work. takes an overview and looks at some historic examples where there is debate on the effectiveness of terrorism. Professor Crenshaw concludes, and I agree, that terrorism is largely counter-productive to a cause. Even where the cause succeeds, that is usually because of other factors and the success was delayed by the presence of terrorism.

As an overview on the topic of terrorism these videos provide a good starting point for future discussion.