The rise and fall of Al-Qaeda / / Fawaz A. Gerges

• Autore: Gerges Fawaz A. <1958->
• Pubblicazione: Oxford ; ; New York, : Oxford University Press, c2011
• Edizione: 1st ed.
• Descrizione fisica: x, 259 p
• Disciplina: 363.325
• Soggetto topico: Terrorism; Terrorism - Religious aspects - Islam
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction : life after death -- The rise of Al-Qaeda -- The growing rift -- A success and a miscalculation -- Decline and fall -- Legacies and aftershocks -- Conclusion : down to size.
• Sommario/riassunto: In this concise and fascinating book, Fawaz A. Gerges argues that Al-Qaeda has degenerated into a fractured, marginal body kept alive largely by the self-serving anti-terrorist bureaucracy it helped to spawn. In The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, Gerges, a public intellectual known widely for his expertise on radical ideologies, including jihadism, argues that the Western powers have become mired in a "terrorism narrative," stemming from the mistaken belief that America is in danger of a devastating attack by a crippled al-Qaeda. To explain why al-Qaeda is no longer a threat, he provides a briskly written history of the organization, showing its emergence from the disintegrating local jihadist movements of the mid-1990s-not just the Afghan resistance of the 1980s, as many believe-in "a desperate effort to rescue a sinking ship by altering its course." During this period, Gerges interviewed many jihadis, gaining a first-hand view of the movement that bin Laden tried to reshape by internationalizing it. Gerges reveals that transnational jihad has attracted but a small minority within the Arab world and possesses no viable social and popular base. Furthermore, he shows that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a major miscalculation--no "river" of fighters flooded from Arab countries to defend al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as bin Laden expected. The democratic revolutions that swept the Middle East in early 2011 show that al-Qaeda today is a non-entity which exercises no influence over Arabs' political life.Gerges shows that there is a link between the new phenomenon of homegrown extremism in Western societies and the war on terror, particularly in Afghanistan-Pakistan, and that homegrown terror exposes the structural weakness, not strength, of bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Gerges concludes that the movement has splintered into feuding factions, neutralizing; itself more effectively than any Predator drone. Forceful, incisive, and written with extensive inside knowledge, this book will alter the debate on global terrorism.
• Titolo autorizzato: Rise and fall of Al-Qaeda
• ISBN: 9786613232212; 9780199790746; 0199790744; 9780190252540; 0190252545; 9780199911714; 0199911711; 9780199790654; 0199790655; 9781283232210; 1283232219
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910953585803321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II