Unmodern Men in the Modern World
Radical Islam, Terrorism, and the War on Modernity

This provocative text examines radical Islamists in the context of globalization and past revolutionaries.

Michael J. Mazarr (Author)

9780521712910, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 September 2007

306 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.45 kg

"The book is grand in its scope and Mazarr is to be commended for taking on the herculean task of trying to make sense of radical Islamism, an immensely complex movement. Of particular value are the insights into the sociopsychological effects of modernization on human beings confronted with such dislocating alien forces.
Perspectives on Politics, Assaf Moghadam, United States Military Academy

A sense of malaise and uncertainty surrounds the so-called war on terror. This volume offers a bold rethinking of the central challenge in that conflict: the rise of radical Islamism. Mazarr argues that this movement represents the latest in a series of anti-modern political and philosophical rebellions: in its causes, the shape of its ideology, and its social consequences, the movement shares much in common with German fascism, Russian revolutionary doctrines, and Japanese imperialist nationalism. The book builds a model of how anti-modern movements arise and suggests broader truths about the changing character of world politics and the psychological basis of national security in a globalized world. It concludes with a critique of the war on terror as currently pursued and a wide-ranging proposal for a strikingly different approach to the challenge of this latest challenge to modernity.

1. The argument
2. Modernization's price
3. The existentialist diagnosis
4. Stages in the trajectory of anti-modernism
5. The anti-modern ideology
6. The leaders and the recruits
7. What to do.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Social & political philosophy [HPS]