Read more
This book tells the story of how Al Qaeda grew in the West. In forensic and compelling detail, Jytte Klausen traces how Islamist revolutionaries exiled in Europe and North America in the 1990s helped create and control one of the world's most impactful terrorist movements - and how, after the near-obliteration of the organization during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, they helped build it again. She shows how the diffusion of Islamist terrorism to Europe and North America has been driven, not by local grievances of Western Muslims, but by the strategic priorities of the international Salafi-jihadist revolutionary movement. That movement has adapted to Western repertoires of protest: agitating for armed insurrection and religious revivalism in the name of a warped version of Islam.
The jihadists-Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and their many affiliates and associates- also proved to be amazingly resilient. Again and again, the movement recovered from major setbacks. Appealing to disaffected Muslims of immigrant origin and alienated converts to Islam, Jihadist groups continue to recruit new adherents in Europe and North America, street-side in neighborhoods, in jails, and online through increasingly clandestine platforms.
Taking a comparative and historical approach, deploying cutting-edge analytical tools, and drawing on her unparalleled database of up to 6,500 Western jihadist extremists and their networks, Klausen has produced the most comprehensive account yet of the origins of Western jihadism and its role in the global movement.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: The Founder
- 2: The 1993 WTC Bombing
- 3: The Sudan Years
- 4: The European Bases
- 5: 9/11: The Day Everything Changed
- 6: Homegrown Terrorism
- 7: Theory and Practice of the Armed Jihad
- 8: The Americans
- 9: The Boston Marathon Bombers
- 10: The ISIS Effect
- 11: Westerners in the Global Jihad
- 12: The Big Picture-And What To Do
- Appendix: Methodology
About the author
Jytte Klausen is the Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation at Brandeis University. Her publications include The Cartoons That Shook the World, The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe, and War and Welfare: Europe and the United States, 1945 to the Present. She is a local affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and Associate Fellow of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. Klausen comments and writes widely about jihadist extremism.
Summary
This book tells the story of Al Qaeda and its development in the West.
Report
Western Jihadism is a groundbreaking analysis of a global movement about which we often hear but tend to lack the data for. Jytte Klausen's book contributes to the ongoing scholarly attempt to correct this "data problem" and adds in other welcome ways to a variety of debates currently under way in the study of terrorism, as well as policy and law enforcement. It is likely to remain a key text for many years to come. Amarnath Amarasingam, Queen's University, Times Literary Supplment
