David Charles Rapoport (born January 7, 1929, Pittsburgh, PA) was a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who focused on the study of terrorism.
[2] He received 12 Awards from a variety of Foundations including the Social Science Research Council, Ford Foundation, Fulbright, American Council of Learned Societies, National Institute of Mental Health and Harry Frank Guggenheim.
Rapoport wrote and edited six books, 50 academic articles and 12 op-ed newspaper columns.
He argues that political concerns and technological development produced the new iterations of terrorism in the form of "waves".
The "new terrorism" began in the 1880s and has produced four different overlapping waves, the Anarchist, Anti-Colonial, New Left and Religious.