- Hardcover: 576 pages
- Publisher: Allen Lane (4 Nov 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846144124
- ISBN-13: 978-1846144127
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.4 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 325,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Talking to the Enemy is an intellectually and personally courageous exploration of one of the most contentious issues of modern times.
Scott Atran has spent years talking to terrorists - from Gaza and Afghanistan, to Indonesia and Europe - in order to help us understand and mitigate the rise of religious violence. Here he argues persuasively that we need to consider terrorists' close relationships, with family and friends, as much as the causes they espouse, and delivers a fascinating journey into the mindsets of radicalised people in the twenty-first century. Along the way, he also provides deep insights into the history of all religions, and into their evolutionary origins. He shows us, above all, how we have come to be human.
More than any other book, Talking to the Enemy invites us to empathise; it is itself the best possible example of how to do it.
About the Author
Scott Atran is a director of research in anthropology at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France. He is also a research associate and visiting professor in psychology and public policy at the University of Michigan, a Presidential Scholar in Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and cofounder of ARTIS Research and Risk Modeling.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I've followed Atran's scientific studies on the cognitive foundations of religion over the last few years as well as his New York Times opeds on the kinds of people and events that keep Al Qaeda and its associates going. Although there are glimmers of how the two lines of research coalesce in these previous accounts, they give no hint of the richness of the connections explored in this book.
Where before there was "only" a general description of the the psychological structure and evolutionary underpinnings of all religions, now we have also an historical account of how history and circumstance molded these universals into the particular religions we know today, including their relation to the history of war and violence, as well as the development of modern civil and human rights.
Within this context, terrorism and violent extremism, including suicide bombings and genocide, are not so much bizarre exceptions to human behavior as infrequent but recurrent phenomena that punctuate and shape a course of human history that, while contingent and not foreseeable in advance, now looks as coherent and inevitable "as a gathering storm in a video run backwards."
But the most politically important and intellectually intriguing aspect of the book is the way the author weaves these initially disparate lines of thought into a practical program to end wars, including the so-called war on terror, by reframing each side's sacred values (such values, unlike material values, cannot be bargained with or compromised in a "business-like" negotiation sense and so must be managed in other ways). This is in order to accomplish what Abraham Lincoln advised as the best way to win wars when he said to an irate Union sympathizer who berated him for trying to treat his enemies as people essentially no different from others: "Why madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." Of course, notes Atran, this is not how you deal with Al Qaeda, but how you try to treat the the kids who are caught along with the driftwood in the riptides of globalization between "Yes we can" and "Happiness is martyrdom."
There are other aspects of the book that have been well reviewed elsewhere, including veteran war reporter Jason's Burke's assessment (in The Guardian and The Observer) of how Atran tracked down the social networks involved in the 9/11, Bali, and Madrid train bombings; and the New Scientist's take on how Talking to the Enemy debunks some of the most virulent and unsubstantiated claims against religion and its relation to terrorism proffered by the "new atheism" of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others.
Where before there was "only" a general description of the the psychological structure and evolutionary underpinnings of all religions, now we have also an historical account of how history and circumstance molded these universals into the particular religions we know today, including their relation to the history of war and violence, as well as the development of modern civil and human rights.
Within this context, terrorism and violent extremism, including suicide bombings and genocide, are not so much bizarre exceptions to human behavior as infrequent but recurrent phenomena that punctuate and shape a course of human history that, while contingent and not foreseeable in advance, now looks as coherent and inevitable "as a gathering storm in a video run backwards."
But the most politically important and intellectually intriguing aspect of the book is the way the author weaves these initially disparate lines of thought into a practical program to end wars, including the so-called war on terror, by reframing each side's sacred values (such values, unlike material values, cannot be bargained with or compromised in a "business-like" negotiation sense and so must be managed in other ways). This is in order to accomplish what Abraham Lincoln advised as the best way to win wars when he said to an irate Union sympathizer who berated him for trying to treat his enemies as people essentially no different from others: "Why madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." Of course, notes Atran, this is not how you deal with Al Qaeda, but how you try to treat the the kids who are caught along with the driftwood in the riptides of globalization between "Yes we can" and "Happiness is martyrdom."
There are other aspects of the book that have been well reviewed elsewhere, including veteran war reporter Jason's Burke's assessment (in The Guardian and The Observer) of how Atran tracked down the social networks involved in the 9/11, Bali, and Madrid train bombings; and the New Scientist's take on how Talking to the Enemy debunks some of the most virulent and unsubstantiated claims against religion and its relation to terrorism proffered by the "new atheism" of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others.
5 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was excited about this book, but I find that I can't get into it. It seems very unstructured, the author not sure how to go about making his point, or what evidence to marshal in support of it. The book drifts from one thing to another: from a superficial recounting of prehistoric human origins, to interviews with militants, to a discussion of New Atheism, to cognitive psychology, all in a vague way with no sense of order or theoretical underpinning. My feeling is that we have here an author who thinks a lot, but has yet to organise and test his ideas theoretically or scientifically. This above all disappoints me, as I am aware that the author has in fact done this to some extent: but this book is a failed attempt to convey his ideas in a popular format.
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