by
Asad, Talal.
Call Number
363.325 22
Publication Date
2007
Summary
Like many people in America and around the world, Talal Asad experienced the events of September 11, 2001, largely through the media and the emotional response of others. For many non-Muslims, ""the suicide bomber"" quickly became the icon of ""an Islamic culture of death"" & mdash;a conceptual leap that struck Asad as problematic. Is there a ""religiously-motivated terrorism?"" If so, how does it differ from other cruelties? What makes its motivation ""religious""? Where does it stand in relation to other forms of collective violence?Drawing on his extensive scholarship in the s.
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0.0722
by
Gerges, Fawaz A., 1958-
Call Number
363.325 22
Publication Date
2011
Summary
In this concise and fascinating book, Fawaz A. Gerges argues that Al-Qaeda has degenerated into a fractured, marginal body kept alive largely by the self-serving anti-terrorist bureaucracy it helped to spawn. In The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, Gerges, a leading authority on Islamic extremism, argues that the West has become mired in a "terrorism narrative," stemming from the mistaken belief that it is in danger of a devastating attack by a crippled Al-Qaeda. To explain why Al-Qaeda is no longer a threat, he provides a briskly written history of the organization, showing its emergence from the disintegrating local jihadist movements of the mid-1990s--not the Afghan resistance of the 1980s, as many believe--in "a desperate effort to rescue a sinking ship by altering its course". During this period, Gerges interviewed many jihadis, gaining a first-hand view of the movement that Bin Laden tried to reshape by internationalizing it. He reveals that global jihad has attracted but a small minority within the Arab world and possesses no viable social and popular base. Furthermore, he shows that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a major miscalculation--no "river" of fighters flooded from Arab countries to defend Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as Bin Laden expected. Gerges concludes that the movement has splintered into feuding factions, neutralizing itself more effectively than a Predator drone. Forceful, incisive, and written with extensive inside knowledge, this book will alter the debate on global terrorism.
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0.0623
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3.
by
Cooper, Barry, 1943-
Call Number
303.625 22
Publication Date
2004
Summary
Annotation "In New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism, Barry Cooper applies the insights of Eric Voegelin to the phenomenon of modern terrorism. Cooper points out that the chief omission from most contemporary studies of terrorism is an analysis of the "spiritual motivation" that is central to the actions of terrorists today. When spiritual elements are discussed in conventional literature, they are grouped under the opaque term religion. A more conceptually adequate approach is provided by Voegelin's political science and, in particular, by his Shellingian term pneumopathology - a disease of the spirit." "While terrorism has been used throughout the ages as a weapon in political struggles, there is an essential difference between groups who use these tactics for more or less rational political goals and those seeking more apocalyptic ends. Cooper argues that today's terrorists have a spiritual perversity that causes them to place greater significance on killing than on exploiting political grievances. He supports his assertion with an analysis of two groups that share the characteristics of a pneumopathological consciousness - Anum Shinrikyo, the terrorist organization that poisoned thousands of Tokyo subway riders in 1995, and Al-Qaeda, the group behind the infamous 9/11 killings." "In the ongoing conversations among specialists in terrorist studies, as well as the ordinary discourse of citizens in western democracies wishing to understand the world around them, this book will add a distinctive voice."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Electronic Resources
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0.0600
by
Orsini, Alessandro, 1975-
Call Number
363.3250945 22
Publication Date
2011
Format:
Electronic Resources
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0.0529
by
Moghadam, Assaf, 1974- author.
Call Number
363.325 23
Publication Date
2017
Summary
"Leading jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State dominate through cooperation in the form of knowledge sharing, resource sharing, joint training exercises, and operational collaboration. They build alliances and lesser partnerships with other formal and informal terrorist actors to recruit foreign fighters and spread their message worldwide, raising the aggregate threat level for their declared enemies. Whether they consist of friends or foes, whether they are connected locally or online, these networks create a wellspring of support for jihadist organizations that may fluctuate in strength or change in character but never runs dry. [This book] identifies types of terrorist actors, the nature of their partnerships, and the environments in which they prosper to explain global jihadist terrorism's ongoing success and resilience. [This book] brings to light an emerging style of 'networked cooperation' that works alongside interorganizational terrorist cooperation to establish bonds of varying depth and endurance. Case studies use recently declassified materials to illuminate al-Qaeda's dealings from Iran to the Arabian Peninsula and the informal actors that power the Sharia4 movement. The book proposes policies that increase intelligence gathering on informal terrorist actors, constrain enabling environments, and disrupt terrorist networks according to different types of cooperation."--
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Electronic Resources
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0.0486
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