Bill,
Thanks for posting the link to the Kepel article. It's an excellent summary of the argument he makes in his most recent book. Of the books I've now read on this topic, his is the best political sociology overview. Tek and I have discussed the book, somewhat briefly, online here.
Here, for anyone who is interested, is the bio clip at the end of the article, so they might see who Kepel is.
Gilles Kepel is one of Europe’s leading specialists on Middle Eastern societies. He is a member of the research faculty of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris where he heads the post-graduate programme on the Arab and Muslim worlds. Among his books are Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Harvard University Press, April 2002), Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe (Stanford University Press, 1997), Revenge of God The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994) and Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh (University of California Press, 1986, 1993). |
