Download or read book Death Orders written by Anna Geifman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-05-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating study shows how terrorism as developed and practiced in Romanov Russia has, over the past century, manifested itself as the template for modern and postmodern terrorism as a universal sociocultural, psychological, and existential experience, irrespective of particular political causes, ethnic distinctions, and ideological boundaries. Arguing that Russia is the birthplace of modern terrorism, Death Orders: The Vanguard of Modern Terrorism in Revolutionary Russia uses the nation as a case study of psycho-historical patterns of worldwide terrorist activity during the past century. Key features of early-20th century Russian political extremism serve as models for terrorist experiences in other periods and regions as author Anna Geifman builds a typology of a universal phenomenon. The book shows how, in Russia and elsewhere, terrorists' objectives have degenerated from punishment of individual adversaries and attempts to intimidate political elites to indiscriminate acts of political violence. It shifts attention from ideology to practices that had been previously hidden, ignored, or rationalized, demonstrating that what terrorists say about their motives may not be what actually drives them to brutality. By looking closely at Russian precedents for the general experience of modern political violence, the book helps illuminate many obscure aspects of terrorism today.

Download or read book Terrorist s Creed written by R. Griffin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-09-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terrorist's Creed casts a penetrating beam of empathetic understanding into the disturbing and murky psychological world of fanatical violence, explaining how the fanaticism it demands stems from the profoundly human need to imbue existence with meaning and transcendence.

Download or read book Killing Strangers written by T. K. Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-02 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bewildering feature of so much contemporary political violence is its stunning impersonality. Every major city centre becomes a potential shooting gallery; and every metro system a potential bomb alley. Victims just happen, as the saying goes, to 'be in the wrong place at the wrong time'. We accept this contemporary reality - at least to some degree. But we rarely ask: where has it come from historically? Killing Strangers tackles this question head on. It examines how such violence became 'unchained' from inter-personal relationships. It traces the rise of such impersonal violence by examining violence in conjunction with changing social and political realities. In particular, it traces both 'push' and 'pull' - the ability of modern states to force the violence of their challengers into niche forms: and the disturbing new opportunities that technological changes offer to cause mayhem in fresh and original ways. Killing Strangers therefore aims to highlight the very strangeness of contemporary experience when it is viewed against a long-term perspective. Atrocities regularly capture media attention - and just as quickly fade from public view. That is both tragic - and utterly predictable. Deep down we expect no different. And that is why such atrocities must be repeated if our attention is to be re-engaged. Deep down we expect that, too. So Killing Strangers deliberately asks the very simplest of questions. How on earth did we get here?

Download or read book Representations of the Orient in Western Music written by Nasser Al-Taee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the cultural, political and religious representations of the Orient in Western music. Dr Nasser Al-Taee traces several threads in a vast repertoire of musical representations, concentrating primarily on the images of violence and sensuality. Al-Taee argues that these prevailing traits are not only the residual manifestation of the Ottoman threat to Western Europe, but also the continuation of a long and complex history of fear and fascination towards the Orient and its Islamic religion. In addition to analyses of musical works, Al-Taee draws on travel accounts, paintings, biographies, and political events to engage with important issues such as gender, race, and religious differences that may have contributed to the variously complex images of the Orient in Western music. The study extends the range of Orientalism to cover eighteenth-century Austria, nineteenth-century Russia, and twentieth-century America. The book challenges those scholars who do not see Orientalism as problematic and tend to ignore the role of musical representations in shaping the image of the Other within a wider interdisciplinary study of knowledge and power.

Download or read book Under Siege written by Jasmin Zine and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 9/11 attacks in the United States, the subsequent global “war on terror,” and the proliferation of domestic security policies in Western nations have had a profound impact on the lives of young Muslims, whose identities and experiences have been shaped within and against these conditions. The millennial generation of Muslim youth has come of age in these turbulent times, dealing with the aftermath and backlash associated with these events. Under Siege explores the lives of Canadian Muslim youth belonging to the 9/11 generation as they navigate these fraught times of global war and terror. While many studies address contemporary manifestations of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, few have focused on the toll this takes on Muslim communities, especially among younger generations. Based on in-depth interviews with more than 130 young people, youth workers, and community leaders, Jasmin Zine’s ethnographic study unpacks the dynamics of Islamophobia as a system of oppression and examines its impact on Canadian Muslim youth. Covering topics such as citizenship, identity and belonging, securitization, radicalization, campus culture in an age of empire, and subaltern Muslim counterpublics and resistance, Under Siege provides a unique and comprehensive examination of the complex realities of Muslim youth in a post-9/11 world. Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, Zine reveals how the global war on terror and heightened anti-Muslim racism have affected a generation of Canadians who were socialized into a world where their faith and identity are under siege.

Download or read book Jihadism written by Nirode Mohanty and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jihad (struggle) is a holy war to defend Islam against non-believers and non-Muslims. Jihadists are holy warriors. The intellectual father of jihadist Islamism, Sayyid Qutb, who was executed in Cairo in 1966, made the message crystal clear: Jihadism (jihadist terrorism) is a “permanent Islamic world revolution” aimed at decentering the West to establish “Hakimiyyat Allah,” or God’s rule, on a global scale. This book narrates the evolution of jihadism (jihadist terrorism) in the past centuries and its impact on the world as an existential threat to the humanity in view of worldwide terrorist attacks with its aggression, barbarity, burning alive of human beings, kidnapping, and savagery while imperiling the democracy, secularism, plurality, freedom, and security of the civilized world. In the last seventy years, radical Islamists have won in many places and many times because of the two world wars and the Cold War. But the recent years have shown new levels of gruesome and ghastly activity. Most Muslims of the world (numbering 1.6 billion people total) condemn these atrocious deaths and are peaceful. They feel their religion is hijacked by a few radicals. After September 11, 2001, the former president George Bush declared “the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.” The leading Muslim country, Egypt, is fighting terrorism unrelentingly with full force. However, the rise of Islamic terrorism in the UK, Belgium, France, Somalia, the Philippines, Afghanistan, and other places in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa is a great threat to the mankind. The radical Islamists consider the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 to be a war against Islam. These events helped to create a resurgence of radical Islam from Indonesia to Iran to secular Turkey. Jihad in the Muslims’ holy book, the Koran, refers to inner strife, but for centuries radicals have misconstrued it to mean a violent, brutal war against nonbelievers. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS terrorists claim they are true Islamic jihadists.

Download or read book The Struggle for the World written by Charles Lindholm and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-09 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do Mexico's Zapatistas, the French National Front, Slow Food, rave subculture, and al-Qaeda all have in common? From right-wing to left-wing to no-wing, they all proudly proclaim their mission to defend their distinctive identities against modernity's homogenizing processes. This controversial book establishes fundamental similarities between anti-globalization "aurora" movements that aim to destroy the modern world and bring a radiant new dawn to humankind. While these groups often despise one another, they nonetheless share many fundamental characteristics, goals, and attitudes. Drawing on the original writings and actions of various anti-globalist groups, the authors reveal a common tendency toward charismatic leadership, good versus evil worldviews, the quest for authentic identity, concern with ritual, and unbending demands for total commitment. These movements, however they pursue world transformation and personal transcendence, are a prominent and continuing aspect of our present condition. This book is a strong reminder that, no matter what the cause, revolution is not a thing of the past and the fervent search for another world continues.

Download or read book The Darkest Sides of Politics II written by Jeffrey M. Bale and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-04 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines a wide array of phenomena that arguably constitute the most noxious, extreme, terrifying, murderous, secretive, authoritarian, and/or anti-democratic aspects of national and international politics. Scholars should not ignore these "dark sides" of politics, however unpleasant they may be, since they influence the world in a multitude of harmful ways. The second volume in this two-volume collection focuses primarily on assorted religious extremists, including apocalyptic millenarian cults, Islamists, and jihadist terrorist networks, as well as CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear) terrorism and the supposedly new "nexus" between organized criminal and extremist groups employing terrorist operational techniques. A range of global case studies are included, most of which focus on the lesser known activities of certain religious extremist milieus. This collection should prove to be essential reading for students and researchers interested in understanding seemingly arcane but nonetheless important dimensions of recent historical and contemporary politics.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research written by Alex Peter Schmid and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2011 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a monumental collection of definitions, conceptual frameworks, paradigmatic formulations, and bibliographic sources, which is now being revised and updated as a resource for the expanding community of researchers on the subject of terrorism.

Download or read book Religious Politics and Secular States written by Scott W. Hibbard and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2011 Winner of the Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize of the International Political Science Association This comparative analysis probes why conservative renderings of religious tradition in the United States, India, and Egypt remain so influential in the politics of these three ostensibly secular societies. The United States, Egypt, and India were quintessential models of secular modernity in the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1980s and 1990s, conservative Islamists challenged the Egyptian government, India witnessed a surge in Hindu nationalism, and the Christian right in the United States rose to dominate the Republican Party and large swaths of the public discourse. Using a nuanced theoretical framework that emphasizes the interaction of religion and politics, Scott W. Hibbard argues that three interrelated issues led to this state of affairs. First, as an essential part of the construction of collective identities, religion serves as a basis for social solidarity and political mobilization. Second, in providing a moral framework, religion's traditional elements make it relevant to modern political life. Third, and most significant, in manipulating religion for political gain, political elites undermined the secular consensus of the modern state that had been in place since the end of World War II. Together, these factors sparked a new era of right-wing religious populism in the three nations. Although much has been written about the resurgence of religious politics, scholars have paid less attention to the role of state actors in promoting new visions of religion and society. Religious Politics and Secular States fills this gap by situating this trend within long-standing debates over the proper role of religion in public life.

Download or read book Avoiding The Terrorist Trap Why Respect For Human Rights Is The Key To Defeating Terrorism written by Thomas David Parker and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 922 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This book makes uncomfortable reading both in its detailed analysis of terrorism and its causes, and in the critique of state responses, particularly in modern times. It is unusual to have such a defence of a 'human rights framework' from a counter-terrorism practitioner rather than from within the legal fraternity. It is this that makes the case even more persuasive. All who are involved in counter-terrorism strategy should consider carefully the arguments put forward.'Global Policy JournalFor more than 150 years, nationalist, populist, Marxist and religious terrorists have all been remarkably consistent and explicit about their aims: provoke states into over-reacting to the threat they pose, then take advantage of the divisions in society that result. Yet, state after state falls into the trap that terrorists have set for them. Faced with a major terrorist threat, governments seem to reach instinctively for the most coercive tools at their disposal and, in doing so, risk exacerbating the situation. This policy response seems to be driven in equal parts by a lack of understanding in the true nature of the threat, an exaggerated faith in the use of force, and a lack of faith that democratic values are sufficiently flexible to allow for an effective counter-terrorism response. Drawing on a wealth of data from both historical and contemporary sources, Avoiding the Terrorist Trap addresses common misconceptions underpinning flawed counter-terrorist policies, identifies the core strategies that guide terrorist operations, consolidates the latest research on the underlying drivers of terrorist violence, and then demonstrates why a counter-terrorism strategy grounded in respect for human rights and the rule of law is the most effective approach to defeating terrorism.

Download or read book Reform and Modernity in Islam written by Safdar Ahmed and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-30 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate over Islam and modernity tends to be approached from a Eurocentric perspective that presents Western norms as a template for progress - against which Islamic societies can be measured. This misses the historical development of Muslim reformist thought that actively engages with the world around it and seeks to reconfigure Islam within the diverse conditions of modernity. Safdar Ahmed paints a complex and nuanced picture that goes beyond the idea that Muslim reformers have either reproduced or reacted against Western ideas. Rather, Ahmed argues, they have reconstructed and appropriated these ideas, and so the thread of Western influence runs through modern Islamic thought on nationalism and sovereignty, femininity and gender. Ahmed uncovers new historiographical perspectives by critically examining the work of prominent intellectuals, such as Muhammad Abduh, Qasim Amin and Abdul A'la Maududi.

Download or read book Refuting the Anti Israel Narrative written by Jeremy Havardi and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, Israel has come under sustained diplomatic pressure from the West. According to the press and the policy establishment, she acts aggressively and with disregard for civilian lives in pursuit of an unnecessary and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Others view the country as an embarrassing outpost of colonialism, racism and apartheid whose actions--and those of the "pro-Israel lobby"--have provoked a fiery Islamist backlash. This book refutes these misrepresentations, showing that Israel's actions are well within the norms of international law and morality, and arguing that the country--far from being a deviant state--is a bastion of Western values. The author offers a nuanced narrative, outlining the legal, moral and historical justice behind Jewish statehood and discussing the reasons behind the failed peace process in recent years.

Download or read book The Business of Martyrdom written by Jeffrey W Lewis and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2012-04-15 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Business of Martyrdom is the only comprehensive history of suicide bombing from its origins in Imperial Russia to the present day. It makes use of a framework from the history and philosophy of technology to explain the diffusion and evolution of suicide bombing over the past several decades. It is primarily a work of synthesis meant to reach a broad audience and endeavors to integrate as much of the recent scholarly literature as possible, including reconciling explanatory mechanisms that seem to be at odds with one another. In addition, this book is able to draw on very recent changes in suicide bombing in the years 2008-2010 that allow it to have a slightly different perspective than earlier studies. For the first time the global number of suicide attacks has declined significantly for three years in a row. This book therefore has the advantage of addressing the phenomenon of suicide bombing as a bounded phenomenon with limits to its growth and diffusion. To this point the impression that suicide bombers are the smartest bombs yet created has been widespread but confined to the area of metaphor. Drawing well-established ideas from the history of technology, The Business of Martyrdom argues that the metaphor should be taken literally. Suicide bombing is a technology that has been invented and re-invented at different times in different areas but always for the same purpose: resolving a mismatch in military capabilities between antagonists by utilizing the available cultural and human resources. Over the past several years, analysts have produced a large number of monographs and articles examining suicide bombing. The best contributions in this new and growing literature have shed considerable light on the complexity of suicide bombing in practice, particularly regarding the structure of the organizations that deploy suicide bombers and the relationships between these organizations and the recruits whom they utilize in their attacks. Nevertheless, nagging inconsistencies and questions remain. These inconsistencies can be explained by examining suicide bombing as a technological system that integrates human beings, cultures, and devices and directs them toward specific ends. Such an analysis requires that neither the individual bombers nor their sponsoring organizations be the basic unit of discussion. Instead, the bombers must be understood as components within a much larger system that has been shaped by a host of social, cultural, and operational constraints throughout its existence. Integrating insights from the historical analysis of other technological systems with the recent literature specifically devoted to suicide bombing therefore allows The Business of Martyrdom to develop a fuller understanding of suicide bombing as a unified yet diverse phenomenon.

Download or read book Religious Ideas in Liberal Democratic States written by Jasper Doomen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious Ideas in Liberal Democratic States adds new context to the ongoing debate over the scope of religious freedom, drawing from a variety of perspectives to discuss the meaning of religion itself within a democratic state. This book argues that categorizing religion as a solely private affair is too narrow an interpretation and questions whether ideas like freedom, human dignity, and equality can be truly actualized in a neutral and secular state. Contributors explore the impact of religion, acknowledged or not, on legislation, human rights, and group rights through legal, historical, and sociological lenses. Scholars of constitutional law, jurisprudence, international law, and political science will find this book particularly useful.

Download or read book Dangerous Brown Men written by Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is the public presentation of the war on terror suffused with sexualised racism? What does this tell us about ideas of gender, sexuality, religious and political identity and the role of the state in the Western powers? Can we diffuse inter-ethnic conflicts and change the way the West pursues its security agenda by understanding the role of sexualised racism in the war on terror? In asking such questions, Gargi Bhattacharyya considers how the concepts of imperialism, feminism, terror and security can be applied, in order to build on the influential debates about the sexualised character of colonialism. She examines the way in which western imperial violence has been associated with the rhetoric of rights and democracy - a project of bombing for freedom that has called into question the validity of western conceptions of democracy, rights and feminism. Such rhetoric has given rise to actions that go beyond simply protecting western interests or securing access to scarce resources and appear to be beyond instrumental reason. The articulations of racism that appear with the war on terror are animated by fears and sexual fantasies inexplicable by rational interest alone. There can be no resolution to this seemingly endless conflict without understanding the highly sexualised racism that animates it. Such an understanding threatens to pierce the heart of imperial relations, revealing their intense contradictions and uncovering attempts to normalise violent expropriation.

Download or read book The Wiley Handbook of What Works in Violence Risk Management written by J. Stephen Wormith and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-02-10 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to the theory, research and practice of violence risk management The Wiley Handbook of What Works in Violence Risk Management: Theory, Research and Practice offers a comprehensive guide to the theory, research and practice of violence risk management. With contributions from a panel of noted international experts, the book explores the most recent advances to the theoretical understanding, assessment and management of violent behavior. Designed to be an accessible resource, the highly readable chapters address common issues associated with violent behavior such as alcohol misuse and the less common issues for example offenders with intellectual disabilities. Written for both those new to the field and professionals with years of experience, the book offers a wide-ranging review of who commit acts of violence, their prevalence in society and the most recent explanations for their behavior. The contributors explore various assessment approaches and highlight specialized risk assessment instruments. The Handbook provides the latest evidence on effective treatment and risk management and includes a number of well-established and effective treatment interventions for violent offenders. This important book: Contains an authoritative and comprehensive guide to the topic Includes contributions from an international panel of experts Offers information on violence risk formulation Reveals the most recent techniques in violence risk assessment Explains what works in violence intervention Reviews specialty clinical assessments Written for clinicians and other professionals in the field of violence prevention and assessment, The Wiley Handbook of What Works in Violence Risk Management is unique in its approach because it offers a comprehensive review of the topic rather than like other books on the market that take a narrower view.