Fools, Martyrs, Traitors.

Fools, Martyrs, Traitors The Story of Martyrdom in the Western World Lacey Baldwin Smith Knopf, $30, 433 pp.

Does everything come down to public relations? That is almost the suggestion of historian Lacey Baldwin Smith in his new book on martyrs. It is not irreverent, Smith asserts, to argue that a gift for political theater does not necessarily imply hypocrisy, but rather a passion to dramatize a cause worthy of one's life. A successful martyr, Smith argues, may be idealistically inspired, but is no less skilled in the art of speaking to the future.

Smith's is not a totally unified book but it is a highly readable one ranging over vast stretches of time and space. It reflects a rich lifetime of learning, rooted in Smith's scholarship in the Renaissance, now grown backward to Socrates and forward to Gandhi. Smith acknowledges that he is not rigidly theoretical about what constitutes martyrdom. Though not taken captive or bound by them, he is fully aware of the various theories about martyrdom--especially those that second-guess the egoism and even sensuality in self-sacrifice. After all, even in martyrdom the self is a large part of the equation and, as Smith notes, a kind of rich, rapt ecstasy is not uncommon in martyrs' memoirs. Think of Carthage's Saint Perpetua.

Fools, Martyrs, Traitors is the product of a course Smith taught at Northwestern University, and the course outlines are visible in the table of contents. Indeed, sometimes you feel the course boring in too hard when the author engages in repetitive comparison and contrast. Lacking a strict definition of martyrdom, Smith seems to have to stop frequently to review the variety of its forms--as if he feels the need to pull all his disparate material together in the middle of an ongoing discussion. One can easily imagine this material delighting college students today, for whom the martyr is an endangered species. Talk of martyrs is, as Monty Python might say, "something completely different."

Martyrs, Smith shows, may not always be noble (Becket was infrequently and maybe only at the last). Moreover, they are rarely sweet and they are often without honor in their own families. Many actively choose their fate; others are in large part victims (the Maccabees). Some are not seeking to change the world (Thomas More was just trying to duck) while others are bent on revising history (Joan of Arc and John Brown). A few want to do so without violence, the ultimate revision (Gandhi). The multifariousness of the book's title is apt: Smith says he can't easily typify such fierce individuals. Maybe the subtitle should read "Stories of Martyrdom."

What finally links all these fools, martyrs, and traitors? It seems that a successful martyr is someone who chooses to value a cause above life itself, and then is "lucky" enough to have dunderheaded persecutors and talented commemorators. The Marian martyrs (Smith sure knows their lore and gore) had Foxe; Socrates lucked out not only with Plato but also the French classical painter David. The Rosenbergs, he shows, artfully promoted themselves while awaiting their cruel and needless execution, and then enticed a national intelligentsia to become their champions.

Smith's greatest spin doctor is the abolitionist John Brown. The effect of Brown's dignified approach to his own execution was profound, especially on moderates in the North. In interviews published in the New York Herald before his death, Brown transformed his image from that of a raving, murderous insurrectionist into quiet, courteous crusader for human rights. The South would have none of it, of course, and was propelled into paranoia and firing the first shot. As Smith observes, those whom the gods wish to destroy, they afflict with martyrs. Brown never did anything well except dying.

In one sense, Smith argues, John Brown is a prophet of things to come: the martyr turned terrorist. On the other hand, conditions for martyrdom become still more tenuous in the twentieth century. It is easier, Smith argues, to fight authoritarian than totalitarian dictatorships. With their mastery of media, Orwellian expertise in public relations, and new tools to annihilate a resistant Self such as concentration camps and mental hospitals, totalitarian regimes can more easily manipulate "history," thus eliminating any memory of their opponents. (Manipulating public opinion in a democracy is a different story. Smith is never more convincing than when detailing the way the Rosenbergs manipulated public opinion through the media.)

Given this rich and contradictory history, perhaps we need to ask ourselves what we are to make of Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh. The national media often spoke in perplexed tones about McVeigh's stony-faced attitude to his jurors. Didn't he want to save his life? No, Smith might have responded, if his publishing schedule had allowed. The reason for McVeigh's behavior was straight out of the history of martyrdom: he was looking to force a death sentence, to arrange his own perverse canonization. McVeigh, please remember, thinks there could be "general uprising" any day now.

Silence can be eloquent, but stony silence, like that of McVeigh, has little power to move mountains or history.

Tom O'Brien, Commonweal's former movie critic, is a Washington, D.C., writer.