Books and
Cooks West
August 2006
Journey of the Jihadist
by Fawaz A. Gerges
Journey of the Jihadist:
Inside Muslim Militancy
Fawaz A. Gerges
Michele's place
Saturday, August 26 at 5:30 PM
From Publisher's Weekly
In September 2005, Gerges, an academic turned news commentator,
published a rare and thoughtful piece of scholarship, The Far Enemy,
that sought to map the different views within militant Islam's
explosive underworld. Gerges argued nimbly, drawing upon numerous
primary sources and firsthand interviews. After traveling across the
Middle East and meeting with former jihadists, he learned that Islamic
militants often disagreed on critical issues (including whether to
attack the United States) and that their movement was far more
variegated than Washington's official portrayal suggests. Published
less than a year later, this new volume reads like a quicky follow-up.
It covers similar ground, draws upon similar sources and is
considerably more limited in its scholarly aspirations—although not,
perhaps, in its commercial ones. Yet the follow-up may be the better
book. Gerges has distilled his ideas to their core and done away with
some of The Far Enemy's repetitions. The book's structure is
also improved. It's now built around a series of profiles that give
focus to each chapter and shed light on how key personalities within
the jihadist vanguard see the world. Gerges even devotes time to his
own upbringing in war-torn Lebanon, and although the veers into his
personal story are not always relevant, they are fascinating in their
own right, adding both intimacy and depth to this valuable book.
