Sacred Violence: Political Religion in a Secular Age

Taken from the book's introduction:

"This book addresses the complex relationship between ideology or political religion and the recourse to political violence and irregular warfare in the 21st Century. The focus of this work is the emergence of the ideology of Islamism and its adaption by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates to the strategic practice of jihadism, both in the Muslim world and among the Western diaspora. In exploring this case, the thesis applies the precepts of war developed by Carl von Clausewitz and his most important modern interpreter, Raymond Aron, to the evolution of jihadism, its tactics and its justification."


A fascinating book, focused in large part on the UK experience, it challenges many of the liberal Western assumptions made about both multi-culturalism as currently practiced in Europe and the role that religion plays in some societies.