Addressing cultural representations of women's participation in the political violence and terrorism of the Italian "anni di piombo" ('years of lead', c. 1969-83), this book conceptualizes Italy's experience of political violence during those years as a form of cultural and collective trauma. The intermittent clustering of cultural representations that feminize terrorism is interrogated in close relation to the psychological, social and political purposes served by such feminization at distinct historical moments. Ruth Glynn analyzes a broad range of texts including press reports, memoir, literary fiction and film, dating from the 1970s to the present with attention paid to the recent re-emergence of domestic terrorism and to cultural representations of the women of the 'New Red Brigades'.