Beyond Terror and Martyrdom - The Future of the Middle East

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2008. A Fine unmarked copy with no inscriptions. 328 pages. Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global arena: a neoconservative nightmare of an insidious Islamic terrorist threat to civilized life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels. Across the airwaves and on the ground, an ill-defined and uncontrollable war has raged between these two opposing scenarios. Deadly images and threats - from the televised beheading of Western hostages to graphic photographs of tortured prisoners at Guantamo, from the destruction wrought by suicide bombers to civilian deaths at the hands of American occupation forces in Iraq - have polarized populations on both sides of the divide. Yet, as noted Middle East scholar and commentator Gilles Kepel demonstrates, President Bush's War on Terror masks a complex political agenda in the Middle East - enforcing democracy, accessing Iraqi oil, securing Israel, and seeking regime change in Iran. The books sounds the alarm to the West and to Islam that both of these narratives are bankrupt and in a bold vision of an 'integrated civilization' he offers a way out of this destructive dialectic. L. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.