In the tradition of The Looming Tower and Terror in the Name of God, an inside look at the social roots of terrorism, that explains why people kill themselves and others, and what we can do about it
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- Ecco
- Carton Qty: 20
- Selling Territory: USCOM
- 30,000
- PUBLISHING HISTORY
- Ecco hc 9780061344909
- Subsidiary Rights: First Serial: Ecco; UK, Translation, Audio, Dramatic: Brockman, Inc.
- On Sale: 10/19/2010
- Social Science/Current Affairs
- Tr 9780061344909 $27.99 ($31.99)
- 576 pages; 6 x 9
- 32 photos, charts, maps throughout
• Scott Atran has spent years in the field interviewing terrorists from around the globe, and his research yields fascinating results about what the nature of these brotherhoods means for the ultimate outcome of the war on terror.
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Talking to the Enemy
Scott Atran
- E-Book
- 9780062020741
- 10/19/2010
- $21.99
Extras
Quotes
"Talking to the Enemy sets us and our governments straight about a long list of dubious assumptions. He is sure that we should talk before we shoot, that the torture chamber is the wrong place to have this conversation, and that we must learn to distinguish real threats from imagined ones."
- Jeremy Harding, London Review of Books
"Talking to the Enemy is Atran's impassioned call for evidence-based policy, but it's also an ambitious survey of culture and violence. Research is the trump card here, played often and well."
- David Shariatmadari, The Guardian
"Talking to the Enemy is about far more than violent extremism. One of the most penetrating works of social investigation to appear in many years, it offers a fresh and compelling perspective on human conflict. "
- John Gray, Literary Review
"Talking to the Enemy is recommendable not just for its vivid insights into the motivation of terrorists, butalso for its study of Islamic radicalisation and the anthropology of religion in general."
- Michael Bond, New Scientist
"Talking to the Enemy is an important book, by turns fascinating, dense, scientific, debatable, illuminating."
- David Aaronovitch, The Times
"In this baggy, passionate and occasionally, but justifiably overwrought book . . . Atran breaks from the conventions to tell us that we have all got it wrong, especially when it comes to suicide terrorism."
- Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times and New Statesman
"Scott Atran is one of the world's most important and innovative thinkers on the local and global dynamics of violent Islamist extremism. . . . Required reading for those trying to understand and address the problems of terrorism in the 21st century."
- Juan Zarate, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism 2005 - 2009
"Anthropologist Scott Atran has produced the most valuable study of fanaticism since Eric Hoffer published THE TRUE BELIEVER sixty years ago. In TALKING TO THE ENEMY, Atran explores the way terrorists think about themselves and teaches us, at last, intelligent ways to think about terrorists. He puts the threat in perspective and provides keys to winning the fight against violent zealotry."
- Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Middle East Editor and author of SECURING THE CITY
"Scott Atran is one of the very few persons who understand religion and have figured out that religion is not about belief and cannot be naively replaced without severe side effects."
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Distinguished Professor, New York University Polytechnic Institute, author of The New York Times bestseller The Black Swan
"This is a really important book.. [Atran's] rigorous, field-based, scientific research not only debunks the claims of pundits who sit lightly to academic discipline but also challenges some of the unscientific attacks on religion by senior scientists. The political implications of his well-grounded analysis are profound but conveyed in a thoroughly accessible writing style which left me excited and hopeful. If you are at all interested in what is going on in our unstable global village you need to read this book."
- John, Lord Alderdice, Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Party in the House of Lords, former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly and President of Liberal International
"We all have a deep need to give meaning to our lives by serving a cause greater than ourselves. But why does this potentially ennobling need sometimes go haywire? Scott Atran talked to violent extremists to find out. The answer, he tells us, lies in the fascinating interplay between an imagined universal brotherhood and a very real face-to-face 'band of brothers.' The stories Atran brings back from talking to jihadists and their supporters are gripping, and the result of his experiments that probe their sacred values are compelling. The insights he gains tell us more than we knew before about what it means to be human."
- Robert Axelrod, Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding at the University of Michigan, author of The Evolution of Cooperation, and recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War.
"A riveting account of the motivational basis of terrorism and field material of rare quality. Atran has written a book engaging for the layperson, but also a document essential to the decision makers. Dismantling the myths that guide the so called war on terror, he provides the tools to address a global problem rationally and effectively."
- Carlo Strenger, Graduate Chair of Clinical Psychology, Tel Aviv University, and columnist for Ha'aretz
"Atran's intellectual reach is prodigious; his analysis of the underpinnings of terrorism is instructive, if often unconventional; and his provocative prescriptions merit debate and consideration."
- Publishers Weekly
Praise for In Gods We Trust:
“Scott Atran fell in love with anthropology in 1970 when he went to work with Margaret Mead at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and found himself surrounded by a collection of thousands of skulls. He has spent the intervening years studying human cultures all over the world, dwelling among the secretive Druze sect in Israel, documenting conservation customs among the Maya of Guatemala, and analyzing the evolution of religion everywhere, a topic he explores in his book In Gods We Trust.”
“Scott Atran fell in love with anthropology in 1970 when he went to work with Margaret Mead at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and found himself surrounded by a collection of thousands of skulls. He has spent the intervening years studying human cultures all over the world, dwelling among the secretive Druze sect in Israel, documenting conservation customs among the Maya of Guatemala, and analyzing the evolution of religion everywhere, a topic he explores in his book In Gods We Trust.”
- Discover magazine
“So how, [Atran] asks, is it that religious beliefs and practices are manifest, anywhere there are people, past or present? How could evolution have favoured wasteful investment in preposterous beliefs? . . . Quite a project. He relies on a combination of the most recent human sciences. . . . One of his exceptional talents is in weaving together a vast number of strands that most of us keep asunder.”
- London Review of Books
"Atran's work is a brilliant exposition of the evolutionary by-product interpretation [of religion] as well as a mine of references for empirical research into the psychology of religion."
- Pascal Boyer, Current Anthropology
“With almost 1000 references and discussions of most of human history and culture, from Neanderthal burials to suicide-bombers in the Palestinian anti-colonialist struggle, this book is consciously and truly encyclopedic in scope, and shows both breadth and depth of scholarship . . . the reader finds himself constantly challenged and provoked into an intellectual ping-pong game as he follows the arguments and the huge body of findings marshaled to buttress them. . . . Atran managed to combine the old and the new by relating the automatic cognitive operations to existential anxieties. This combination will be a benchmark and a challenge to students of religion in all disciplines.”
- Human Nature Review
Praise for Cognitive Foundations of Natural History:
“Only Atran could have written a book that combines deep understanding of anthropology, biological systematics, the history of science, and philosophy. The result is a book that contains more substance per page than any book I have read in a generation.”
“Only Atran could have written a book that combines deep understanding of anthropology, biological systematics, the history of science, and philosophy. The result is a book that contains more substance per page than any book I have read in a generation.”
- David L. Hull, Northwestern University, Biology and Philosophy
"This deeply researched, wide ranging, and very timely study provides a compelling and often surprising account of what lies behind the jihadi phenomenon . . . . It should be read carefully, and pondered."
- Noam Chomsky
"The stories Atran brings back from talking to jihadists and their supporters are gripping, and the result of his experiments that probe their sacred values are compelling. The insights he gains tell us more than we knew before about what it means to be human."
- Robert Axelrod, Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding at the University of Michigan, author of The Evolution of Cooperation, and recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War.
"Atran has given us a remarkably honest book, demonstrating that down-to-earth field work can give us a far superior understanding of what makes terrorists'tick' than whole armies of armchair counter-terrorist 'experts.'"
- Perspectives on Terrorism
"[Atran's] rigorous research not only debunks the claims of pundits who sit lightly to academic discipline but also challenges unscientific attacks on religion by senior scientists. The political implications of his well-grounded analysis are profound but conveyed in an accessible style which left me excited and hopeful."
- John, Lord Alderdice, Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Party in the House of Lords, former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly and President of Liberal International
"A riveting account of the motivational basis of terrorism and field material of rare quality. Dismantling the myths that guide the so called war on terror, he provides the tools to address a global problem rationally and effectively."
- Carlo Strenger, Graduate Chair of Clinical Psychology, Tel Aviv University, and columnist for Ha'aretz
"Atran deploys his formidable knowledge . . . to dissect the various dynamics that have helped form human individuals into groups, warbands, hunting parties or armies over the millennia. . . . Even more impresssive is Atran's field research . . . research that underpins his vision of radical Islamic militancy as an adaptive social movement. . . . A very useful addition to other, more mainstream understandings of what 'al-Qaida' might be."
- jason Burke, The Observer
"A highly readable round-the-world examination of the jihad and its adherents. . . . Atran pieces together the lives and the backgrounds of extremists, offering insightful perspectives by placing contemporary Islamist dissent into a deeper context of human evolutionary history."
- Richard Phelps, Financial Times
"What can be done to undo future jihadist networks? renowned anthropologist Scott Atran has carried out a very thorough study with surprising findings on what motivates those who kill and die."
- Luis Miguel Ariza, El Pais
"Atran has given us a remarkablly honest book, demonstrating that down-to-earth field work can give us a far superior understanding of what makes terrorists 'tick' than whole armies of armchair counterterroris 'experts.'"
- Alex Schmid, Perspectives on Terrorism
"Atran's intellectual reach is prodigious; his analysis of the underpinnings of terrorism is instructive, if often unconventional; and his provocative prescriptions merit debate and consideration."
- Publishers Weekly