Product Description: Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global arena: a neoconservative nightmare of an insidious Islamic terrorist threat to civilized life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels. Across the airwaves and on the ground, an ill-defined and uncontrollable war has raged between these two opposing scenarios...read more

Product Description: Despite the frequent appearances of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri on television screens worldwide, Al Qaeda remains an elusive entity. As the world has grown increasingly familiar with the spectacle of Islamist terrorism, Al Qaeda’s essential worldview has remained bewilderingly opaque...read more

Assesses the roots and impact of global terrorism, including the United States' ability to address the Middle East challenge and fault lines in terrorist ideology, outlining conditions for acceptance of Israel and democratization of Islamist and Arab societies.

Product Description: Con los atentados del 11 de septiembre de 2001, Bin Laden y sus seguidores buscaban dar un giro al declive que había experimentado la yihad en los años noventa, tanto en Egipto como en Bosnia, en Arabia o en Argelia. Mediante este golpe al "enemigo lejano" estadounidense, esperaban unir de nuevo a sus partidari...read more

Gilles Kepel takes us into the world of the students, professionals, workers, and unemployed who are caught up in the Islamic movements of our day. Events that have riveted world attention—the World Trade Center bombing, assassinations in Beirut, the attempt on the life of the Pope, the assassination of Sadat—are illuminated by this penetrating study which surveys the background of the Islamist movement beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. (view table of contents)

A compelling account of the rise of modern political Islam traces the emergence of a new, militant brand of Islamic thought that appeared in the early 1970s and has been rocking the world ever since.

This book is a revealing account of the ways the Islamic tradition in recent years has asserted its identity in the United States, France, and Great Britain. The most prominent and controversial manifestations of this phenomenon were the pronouncement of Salman Rushdie's death sentence for writing The Satanic Verses, which led to mobs of Britain's working-class Pakistanis publicly burning copies of the book; the heated debates in France over "the veil incident," which surged around the question of whether three Muslim girls could wear an Islamic veil in a state school; and the "Islamization" of American black ghettos under the banner of the Black Muslims. This book, however, goes behind these headline events, arguing that new social, cultural, political, and religious "fault lines" have emerged, centered around a particular brand of Islamic activism which operates at the very heart of post-industrial society. It demonstrates that the Islamic movements in the United States and Europe are establishing themselves outside the areas where Islam has traditionally been present, using Western languages, having ready access to the broadcast media, and evolving into the avant-garde of the faith's expansion across the world. From the streets of Los Angeles to Britain's inner cities and France's rundown suburbs, the author describes the activities of Islamic activists who put forward an alternative lifestyle and system of beliefs to those of the largely uncomprehending West. He also examines the creation and development of Islamic communities that challenge Western society, which has been unable to provide solutions to the new problems posed by these groups who are demanding social and political recognition.

An account of the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in the modern world, and of the conflict and strife to which it has given rise. Gilles Kepel examines this development by comparing three major world religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam.