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Europe's Angry Muslims: The Revolt of the Second Generation
Europe's Angry Muslims traces the routes, expectations and destinies of immigrant parents and the plight of their children, transporting both the general reader and specialist from immigrants' ancestral villages to their new enclaves in Europe. It guides readers through Islamic nomenclature, chronicles the motive force of the Islamist narrative, offers them lively portraits of jihadists, and takes them inside radical mosques and into the minds of suicide bombers. Through interviews of former radicals and security agents and examination of the sermons of radical imams, Robert Leiken presents an unsentimental yet compassionate account of Islam's growing presence in the West. His nuanced and authoritative analysis-historical, sociological, theological and anthropological-warns that conflating rioters and Islamists, folk and fundamentalist Muslims, pietists and jihadis, and immigrants and their children is the method of strategic incoherence.
Now with a new preface analyzing the rise of ISIL, this book offers a cogent overview of how global terror and its responding foreign policy interacts with the lives of Muslim, first-and second generation immigrants in Europe.
Now with a new preface analyzing the rise of ISIL, this book offers a cogent overview of how global terror and its responding foreign policy interacts with the lives of Muslim, first-and second generation immigrants in Europe.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published December 2, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 6, 2015
Here is an antidote for stereotypical thinking about moslems in the modern world, and its usual result, gung-ho policy proposals. It carefully examines moslem immigration and its consequences in France, Britain and Germany.
Policies with regard to how peoples of other cultures should be received as immigrants in each country are contrasted. Leiken makes the quite plausible assertion that there are continuities, that policy is a natural result of national history. Britain ruled its empire by co-opting local potentates, leaving in place pre-existing laws and customs for as long as this arrangement served British interests; hence multiculturalism and the proliferation of powerful, and often unrepresentative, ethnic organisations. Revolutionary France called every Frenchman "citoyen" (citizen), and later rationalised the expansion of empire by "assimilating" the denizens of French colonies, educating their children (usually with limited success) to be Frenchmen; thus today France demands the acceptance of "Republican values", notably the policy of "laicité" which makes many international observers so uncomfortable. Germany has a very short colonial history, and a strong motive to avoid any policy that smacks of Nazism; its policies fall somewhere between the poles represented by France and Britain. All three can claim to respect freedom of religious practice, but there is least ambiguity about the French position on the primacy of the rule of law where there is any conflict with religious practice. Leiken approves, and so do I.
Each country has experienced acts of violent jihad perpetrated by so-called "home-grown terrorists". Leiken looks into the biographies of jihadists, searching out social circumstances and motives, and examining organisations that have influenced their "radicalisation". This book appeared in 2012, so don't expect to read about, for instance, the Charlie Hebdo / Hyper Cacher (January 2015) incidents in France. He also provides a loose topology of various Islams that he calls a "users guide". Some are benign, others may exhort violence, and others not violent in themselves typically recur in case histories as way-stations on the road to violent jihadism.
It is apparent from Leiken's painstakingly researched examples that the only generalisation we can depend upon is that all generalisations about the formation of violent jihadists among immigrants are likely to be futile. He speaks of "a theory of relativity in antiterrorism", and continues: "What you can do depends on where you are. And knowing where you are will almost invariably require the recognition and appreciation of heterogeneity." (p. 268) His parting message is: "So take away, dear reader, a mind for patient and concrete analysis as a condition for policy and action." (p.299)
If you're seeking a programmatic solution to the world's problems with jihadism, then this is not the book for you. Leiken's book provides a cogent demonstration that there are no easy answers and no simple answers. Informative, well-argued and balanced. A very good book.
Policies with regard to how peoples of other cultures should be received as immigrants in each country are contrasted. Leiken makes the quite plausible assertion that there are continuities, that policy is a natural result of national history. Britain ruled its empire by co-opting local potentates, leaving in place pre-existing laws and customs for as long as this arrangement served British interests; hence multiculturalism and the proliferation of powerful, and often unrepresentative, ethnic organisations. Revolutionary France called every Frenchman "citoyen" (citizen), and later rationalised the expansion of empire by "assimilating" the denizens of French colonies, educating their children (usually with limited success) to be Frenchmen; thus today France demands the acceptance of "Republican values", notably the policy of "laicité" which makes many international observers so uncomfortable. Germany has a very short colonial history, and a strong motive to avoid any policy that smacks of Nazism; its policies fall somewhere between the poles represented by France and Britain. All three can claim to respect freedom of religious practice, but there is least ambiguity about the French position on the primacy of the rule of law where there is any conflict with religious practice. Leiken approves, and so do I.
Each country has experienced acts of violent jihad perpetrated by so-called "home-grown terrorists". Leiken looks into the biographies of jihadists, searching out social circumstances and motives, and examining organisations that have influenced their "radicalisation". This book appeared in 2012, so don't expect to read about, for instance, the Charlie Hebdo / Hyper Cacher (January 2015) incidents in France. He also provides a loose topology of various Islams that he calls a "users guide". Some are benign, others may exhort violence, and others not violent in themselves typically recur in case histories as way-stations on the road to violent jihadism.
It is apparent from Leiken's painstakingly researched examples that the only generalisation we can depend upon is that all generalisations about the formation of violent jihadists among immigrants are likely to be futile. He speaks of "a theory of relativity in antiterrorism", and continues: "What you can do depends on where you are. And knowing where you are will almost invariably require the recognition and appreciation of heterogeneity." (p. 268) His parting message is: "So take away, dear reader, a mind for patient and concrete analysis as a condition for policy and action." (p.299)
If you're seeking a programmatic solution to the world's problems with jihadism, then this is not the book for you. Leiken's book provides a cogent demonstration that there are no easy answers and no simple answers. Informative, well-argued and balanced. A very good book.
December 5, 2017
Pacat de stilul autorului pentru ca informatia este de calitate.
November 17, 2019
I learned a great amount of really valuable information about Muslims in Europe. And that means for me a 5 🌟 book.
December 27, 2015
Less partisan than its provocative title would suggest, Europe's Angry Muslims is a thought-provoking exploration of terrorism and jihadist movements within Europe, and how different countries' policies towards their Muslim immigrant populations have produced different outcomes. Focused mainly on France, Britain, and Germany, the book follows the radicalization of those behind terror attacks of the early 21st century but also explores their neighborhoods and broader social worlds.
It is probably inevitable that a book like this would become quickly out of date, and indeed the conclusion that France's integrationist policies have sparked more protest against police brutality than terrorism seems in particular to require an explanation in light of the Charlie Hebdo and recent Paris attacks. Still, the book is thorough, fascinating, and a good starting point for any discussion of the dual alienation of young people who, not quite fitting in with their parents' home town communities who think of them as European nor with their white European peers whose job and social prospects they trail while being pressured to marry from "back home," find an ironic freedom in salafist communities.
It is probably inevitable that a book like this would become quickly out of date, and indeed the conclusion that France's integrationist policies have sparked more protest against police brutality than terrorism seems in particular to require an explanation in light of the Charlie Hebdo and recent Paris attacks. Still, the book is thorough, fascinating, and a good starting point for any discussion of the dual alienation of young people who, not quite fitting in with their parents' home town communities who think of them as European nor with their white European peers whose job and social prospects they trail while being pressured to marry from "back home," find an ironic freedom in salafist communities.
October 12, 2015
A very important read for understanding the challenges of immigration, rising expectations, and crisis of identity. It also overlaps into the broader appeal of al-Qa'ida and ISIS ideology. It's not all encompassing, but Robert Leiken provides enough information and analysis to challenge basic assumptions and causal relationships held by many in the West.
December 3, 2025
A history of Islamic terrorism in Europe — interesting and I liked it
April 29, 2017
Very good and full of information
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews