Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists

by Scott Atran

Overview

“Atran explores the way terrorists think of themselves and teaches us, at last, intelligent ways to think about terrorists.” —Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Middle East Editor and author of Securing the City

Talking to the Enemy is an eye-opening and important book that offers a startling look deep inside terror groups. Based on the author’s unprecedented access to and in-depth interviews with terrorists and jihadis—including Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Taliban extremists and members of other radical organizations—Talking to the Enemy provides fresh insight and unexpected answers to why there are people in this world willing to kill and die for a cause. A riveting, compelling work in the tradition of The Looming Tower and Terror in the Name of God, Talking to the Enemy is required reading for anyone interested in making the world a safer, more secure place for everyone.

“Scott Atran is one of the very few persons who understand religion and have figured out that religion is not about belief and cannot be naively replaced without severe side effects.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb, New York Times-bestselling author of The Black Swan

“Historically keen and astutely humanistic . . . the author’s deep penetration into anthropological explanations of evolution, teamwork, blood sport and war attempt to define what it means to be human.” —Kirkus Reviews

Includes photographs

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062020741
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/15/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	581
File size:	8 MB

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. His books include In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.

Editorial Reviews

Atran (In Gods We Trust) examines the motivations of terrorists in this sprawling and timely study. Drawing upon years of travel among Muslim communities from Indonesia to Morocco, extensive interviews with “would-be martyrs and holy warriors,” and detailed surveys, the author concludes that young jihadists aren’t merely motivated by political or religious fervor--they are powerfully bound to each other, they were “campmates, school buddies, soccer pals, and the like, who become die-hard bands of brothers.” Besides the importance of group dynamics in spawning terrorists, the author highlights the role of “sacred values”--core cultural values--that ”often trump other values, particularly economic ones.” Within this context, Atran argues that the best measures against today’s terrorist threat--which is more opportunistic, “more scattered and disjointed,” than it was before 9/11--are soft-power initiatives “to provide alternative heroes and hopes” within Muslim communities and to reframe sacred values. Atran’s intellectual reach is prodigious; his analysis of the underpinnings of terrorism is instructive, if often unconventional; and his provocative prescriptions merit debate and consideration. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Talking to the Enemy is Atran’s impassioned call for evidence-based policy, but it’s also an ambitious survey of culture and violence. Research is the trump card here, played often and well.” — David Shariatmadari, The Guardian

“Talking to the Enemy is about far more than violent extremism. One of the most penetrating works of social investigation to appear in many years, it offers a fresh and compelling perspective on human conflict. ” — John Gray, Literary Review

“Talking to the Enemy is recommendable not just for its vivid insights into the motivation of terrorists, butalso for its study of Islamic radicalisation and the anthropology of religion in general.” — Michael Bond, New Scientist

“Talking to the Enemy is an important book, by turns fascinating, dense, scientific, debatable, illuminating.” — David Aaronovitch, The Times

“Scott Atran is one of the world’s most important and innovative thinkers on the local and global dynamics of violent Islamist extremism. . . . Required reading for those trying to understand and address the problems of terrorism in the 21st century.” — Juan Zarate, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism

“What can be done to undo future jihadist networks' renowned anthropologist Scott Atran has carried out a very thorough study with surprising findings on what motivates those who kill and die.” — Luis Miguel Ariza, El Pais

“Atran has given us a remarkably honest book, demonstrating that down-to-earth field work can give us a far superior understanding of what makes terrorists‘tick’ than whole armies of armchair counter-terrorist ‘experts.’” — Perspectives on Terrorism

“This deeply researched, wide ranging, and very timely study provides a compelling and often surprising account of what lies behind the jihadi phenomenon . . . . It should be read carefully, and pondered.” — Noam Chomsky

“Atran explores the way terrorists think about themselves and teaches us, at last, intelligent ways to think about terrorists. He puts the threat in perspective and provides keys to winning the fight against violent zealotry.” — Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Middle East Editor and author of SECURING THE CITY

“The stories Atran brings back from talking to jihadists and their supporters are gripping, and the result of his experiments that probe their sacred values are compelling. The insights he gains tell us more than we knew before about what it means to be human.” — Robert Axelrod, Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding at the University of Michigan, author of The Evolution of Cooperation

“Atran is one of the world’s most important thinkers on the local and global dynamics of violent Islamist extremism. His research on what motivates young men to fall prey to violent ideologies is required reading for those trying to understand the problems of terrorism in the 21st century.” — Juan Zarate, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism

“[Atran’s] rigorous research not only debunks the claims of pundits who sit lightly to academic discipline but also challenges unscientific attacks on religion by senior scientists. The political implications of his well-grounded analysis are profound but conveyed in an accessible style which left me excited and hopeful.” — John, Lord Alderdice, Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Party in the House of Lords, former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly and President of Liberal International

“A riveting account of the motivational basis of terrorism and field material of rare quality. Dismantling the myths that guide the so called war on terror, he provides the tools to address a global problem rationally and effectively.” — Carlo Strenger, Graduate Chair of Clinical Psychology, Tel Aviv University, and columnist for Ha'aretz

“Scott Atran is one of the very few persons who understand religion and have figured out that religion is not about belief and cannot be naively replaced without severe side effects.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Distinguished Professor, New York University Polytechnic Institute, author of the New York Times bestseller The Black Swan

“Historically keen and astutely humanistic...the author’s deep penetration into anthropological explanations of evolution, teamwork, blood sport and war attempt to define what it means to be human.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Recommendable not just for its vivid insights into the motivation of terrorists, but also for its study of Islamic radicalization and the anthropology of religion in general..” — New Scientist

“A highly readable round-the-world examination of the jihad and its adherents. . . . Atran pieces together the lives and the backgrounds of extremists, offering insightful perspectives by placing contemporary Islamist dissent into a deeper context of human evolutionary history.” — Richard Phelps, Financial Times

“Atran has given us a remarkablly honest book, demonstrating that down-to-earth field work can give us a far superior understanding of what makes terrorists ‘tick’ than whole armies of armchair counterterroris ‘experts.’” — Alex Schmid, Perspectives on Terrorism

“Atran’s intellectual reach is prodigious; his analysis of the underpinnings of terrorism is instructive, if often unconventional; and his provocative prescriptions merit debate and consideration.” — Publishers Weekly

“Sets us and our governments straight about a long list of dubious assumptions. He is sure that we must talk before we shoot, and that we must learn to distinguish real threats from imagined ones.” — Jeremy Harding, London Review of Books

From the Publisher

Talking to the Enemy is recommendable not just for its vivid insights into the motivation of terrorists, butalso for its study of Islamic radicalisation and the anthropology of religion in general.

Michael Bond

Talking to the Enemy is an important book, by turns fascinating, dense, scientific, debatable, illuminating.

David Aaronovitch

Sets us and our governments straight about a long list of dubious assumptions. He is sure that we must talk before we shoot, and that we must learn to distinguish real threats from imagined ones.

Jeremy Harding

Recommendable not just for its vivid insights into the motivation of terrorists, but also for its study of Islamic radicalization and the anthropology of religion in general..

New Scientist

Atran has given us a remarkablly honest book, demonstrating that down-to-earth field work can give us a far superior understanding of what makes terrorists ‘tick’ than whole armies of armchair counterterroris ‘experts.’

Alex Schmid

Atran has given us a remarkably honest book, demonstrating that down-to-earth field work can give us a far superior understanding of what makes terrorists‘tick’ than whole armies of armchair counter-terrorist ‘experts.’

Perspectives on Terrorism

A highly readable round-the-world examination of the jihad and its adherents. . . . Atran pieces together the lives and the backgrounds of extremists, offering insightful perspectives by placing contemporary Islamist dissent into a deeper context of human evolutionary history.

Richard Phelps

Atran explores the way terrorists think about themselves and teaches us, at last, intelligent ways to think about terrorists. He puts the threat in perspective and provides keys to winning the fight against violent zealotry.

Christopher Dickey

Scott Atran is one of the world’s most important and innovative thinkers on the local and global dynamics of violent Islamist extremism. . . . Required reading for those trying to understand and address the problems of terrorism in the 21st century.

Juan Zarate

The stories Atran brings back from talking to jihadists and their supporters are gripping, and the result of his experiments that probe their sacred values are compelling. The insights he gains tell us more than we knew before about what it means to be human.

Robert Axelrod

Talking to the Enemy is about far more than violent extremism. One of the most penetrating works of social investigation to appear in many years, it offers a fresh and compelling perspective on human conflict.

John Gray

What can be done to undo future jihadist networks' renowned anthropologist Scott Atran has carried out a very thorough study with surprising findings on what motivates those who kill and die.

Luis Miguel Ariza

This deeply researched, wide ranging, and very timely study provides a compelling and often surprising account of what lies behind the jihadi phenomenon . . . . It should be read carefully, and pondered.

Noam Chomsky

[Atran’s] rigorous research not only debunks the claims of pundits who sit lightly to academic discipline but also challenges unscientific attacks on religion by senior scientists. The political implications of his well-grounded analysis are profound but conveyed in an accessible style which left me excited and hopeful.

Lord Alderdice John

Talking to the Enemy is Atran’s impassioned call for evidence-based policy, but it’s also an ambitious survey of culture and violence. Research is the trump card here, played often and well.

David Shariatmadari

Scott Atran is one of the very few persons who understand religion and have figured out that religion is not about belief and cannot be naively replaced without severe side effects.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A riveting account of the motivational basis of terrorism and field material of rare quality. Dismantling the myths that guide the so called war on terror, he provides the tools to address a global problem rationally and effectively.

Carlo Strenger

Recommendable not just for its vivid insights into the motivation of terrorists, but also for its study of Islamic radicalization and the anthropology of religion in general..

New Scientist

French-American anthropologist Atran (In God We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, 2002, etc.) travels widely interviewing terrorists and jihadists to uncover the driving force motivating religious violence.

Wildly ambitious and meandering, the book is at once frustratingly ill-focused, historically keen and astutely humanistic. The author has conducted tremendous fieldwork over the years, studying "tribal" groupings from Muslim fighters in Sulawesi, Indonesia, to suicide bombers in Palestine, and delving into the root of sacred beliefs. Jihad is not necessarily "nihilistic and immoral," as Americans tend to believe, with their "constant diet of individualism" and dislike of looking to group action for justification of behavior. Atran's studies show rather that "imagined kinship—the rhetoric and ritual of brotherhood, motherland, family, or friends and the like"—has sharpened the religious instinct with its expression in irrational and illogical belief. Curiously, the author discovered that five of the seven suicide bombers of the 2004 Madrid train attack—as well as various "Iraq-bound martyrs"—spent formative years growing up in an ancient Moroccan barrio of Tetuán called Jamaa Mezuak, where the vanquished Moors had retreated after the defeat of Grenada in 1492. Atran wonders if these Mezuak soccer buddies were still playing out after all these centuries a "triumphant resistance to Christian conquest." The author examines in vivid detail the kinship among the Madrid bombers, and, earlier, the October 2002 Bali bombings masterminded by Indonesian militants. He attempts to establish how a terrorist network is formed—by attending the same madrassah, living in the same village family, and so on. Atran also traveled to Pakistan to inquire about clan loyalties and the Taliban, and looks at how the availability of resources and the intense competition for them dictate social structures. Though often scattered, the author's deep penetration into anthropological explanations of evolution, teamwork, blood sport and war attempt to define what it means to be human—and he does an admirable job in the face of far-flung research.

Messy but revealing and passionate—enlightening for patient readers.

Kirkus Reviews