Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam - Hardcover

Kepel, Gilles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674008774 ISBN 13: 9780674008779

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Beginning in the early 1970s, militants revolted against the regimes in power throughout the Muslim world and exacerbated political conflicts everywhere. Their jihad, or "Holy Struggle," aimed to establish a global Islamic state based solely on a strict interpretation of the Koran. Religious ideology proved a cohesive force, gathering followers ranging from students and the young urban poor to middle-class professionals. Jihad is the first extensive, in-depth attempt to follow the history and geography of this disturbing political-religious phenomenon.

About this title

Review:

"Islam's radical politicalization had peaked long before September 11th...[Kepel] argues provocatively in a landmark book. So devastating and unexpected was the September 11th attack on America that many people concluded that Islamic extremism had become a threat of monstrous and mushrooming proportions. That idea is deftly countered in this brilliant and provocative book...Kepel argues that the attack can only be understood in the light of the rise and fall of political Islam...over the past quarter-century. Of all the books on the subject since September 11th, this is one of the most challenging and most illuminating." - The Economist "A welcome respite for anyone who fears the fury associated with militant Islam...A compelling read." - Robin Wright, New York Times Book Review "Jihad is probably the best introduction to Islamism currently available." - Walter Laqueur, Atlantic Monthly" LDEP This colloquium volume celebrates a new Hellenistic epigram collection attributed to the third-century B.C.E. poet Posidippus, one of the most significant literary finds in recent memory. Included in this collection are an unusual variety of voices and perspectives: papyrological, art historical, archaeological, historical, literary, and aesthetic. These texts are considered as individual poems and as collective artifact, an early poetry book. The volume will be of interest to readers of Greek and Latin epigram, students of the Hellenistic period, and all readers interested in the aesthetics of poetry collection and the evolution of the poetry book in antiquity. ABOP BENJAMIN ACOSTA-HUGHES is Assistant Professor of Greek and Latin at the Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan. MANUEL BAUMBACH is Wissenschaftlicher Assistant of Professor Dr. G. W. Most of the Classics Department at the University of Heidelberg. ELIZABETH KOSMETATOU is a Fellow of the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research, Belgium.

About the Author:

GILLES KEPEL is Professor of Middle East Studies at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0674008774
• ISBN 13: 9780674008779
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 464