When he rides from one place to another, it is in an armored car, preceded and followed by armored cars filled with soldiers. He travels at a high rate of speed along a route guarded by rows of police. That could be a description of nearly any political leader today. It is, in fact, drawn from an account of the security arrangements for President Machado of Cuba in 1930, who Western commentators portrayed as dictatorial, cowed, and paranoid.Like any good introduction, the introduction tells the reader about the book and its arguments. However, as an alternative, I’d direct the browser to the beginning of chapter 10, which reads: ‘For the West, the assassination world shifted most profoundly in the 1980s. Faced with an increasing number of assassination conspiracies, the western political elite changed its own status, way of living, and structural relationship with other citizens.’ Anyone interested in this idea should like the book.I’d be very satisfied if Death to Order convinces writers, journalists, and readers to give up on counter-factual speculation about assassination. Assassinations have observable effects: our time is more fruitfully spent on those effects rather than fantastical non-happenings.