my comment about Akbar S. Ahmed may not have been immediately clear, so here is a little clarification I wrote to someone elsewhere:
Akbar S Ahmed is an ex-civil servant who has made a career in anthropology and academia selling his "first hand experience" of tribal mores. This book is more or less on that theme. The idea that the Jihadis are basically aggrieved tribal people, upholding their mysterious, exotic tribal code against the modern world. Which, I think, is nonsense. The traditional tribal structures have completely collapsed in the face of modern jihadism and have little or nothing to do with this phenomenon, which was imported into tribal areas by the CIA and ISI and is hardly a tribal innovation. Undeveloped administration and tribal loyalties and notions of honor are indeed part of the reason why they have thrived there, but only a part..and the ungoverned part has more to do with it than the tribal part. Akbar is basically selling the line that all would be well if the West leaves the tribals alone to carry on with their tribal ways. Which is not true. I thought that for a major publication (OK, a left-liberal one, but still) to publish such a laudatory review indicates that Westerners are eager to buy this notion and Akbar is there to sell it to them. He knows what he is doing, being well attuned to what his audience wants to hear. But after you push past the fluff, there is no substance there.
Dr Taqi has a very forgiving review here that may be helpful http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...4-3-2013_pg3_5
Irfan Husain has some background on Akbar S Ahmed http://dawn.com/news/1023105/the-unflattering-truth
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