Today’s use of cars to attack ordinary civilians in open urban and crowed areas, as evident in Thursday’s terrorist attack in Barcelona and Cambrils, Spain, bears a striking resemblance to some of the anarchist bombings and attacks that took place from the late 1880s to the dawn of the 1920s. Once again, a relatively tiny extremist minority has found that it can get vast publicity and attention with high-visibility, high-casualty attacks in a public area that have no particular political or strategic value. But even a failed attack garners lots of public and media attention.