Jason Burke is the south Asia correspondent of the
Guardian and the
Observer newspapers. His books include
The 9/11 Wars and
Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam.
Lee Konstantinou called Burke’s
Al-Qaeda" a really eye-opening look at how the terrorist organization was born and how it really operates."
Burke named
a top ten list of books on militant Islamism for the
Guardian, including:
Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel
I read this in Pakistan, over a period of weeks shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Its sweep across the broad landscape of radical Sunni activism was a 
revelation. The book is one of the few genuinely rigorous academic overviews of the social and historical roots of the phenomenon of modern Muslim extremism – ranging geographically from the far east to Europe, and chronologically from the 1960s onwards – that also remains readable. Its primary thesis – that violent Islamic militancy is in large part a response to the failure of political Islamist activism – has stood the test of time. Kepel is famous in France but almost unknown outside. This is a shame. A classic.
Read about
another title on the list.
See
Burke's five top books on Islamic militancy.
--Marshal Zeringue
Lee Konstantinou called Burke’s Al-Qaeda" a really eye-opening look at how the terrorist organization was born and how it really operates."
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