Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T21:57:41.873Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2006

William B. Quandt
Affiliation:
University of Virginia

Extract

The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. By Fawaz A. Gerges. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 358p. $27.00.

The 9/11 attacks have already produced a substantial literature that seeks to explain the roots of Al Qaeda's strategy of targeting the United States. Explanations range from simplistic statements—“They hate us,” “They hate freedom”—to arguments about revenge or punishment for various American policy choices, to more complex arguments that Osama bin Laden and his associates sought to draw America into a trap of sorts. One problem, of course, is that no one really has much of an idea of precisely what led bin Ladin and his top associates to plot the 9/11 attacks. Scholars do not, quite frankly, have a lot to work with here.

Type
BOOK REVIEWS: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Copyright
© 2006 American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)