Jihadism in Europe: European Youth and the New Caliphate (Religion and Global Politics)

Review\n"Khosrokhavar offers a valuable political ethnographic and anthropological analysis. The book explains the lure of jihadism for modern European youth and breaks down complex theology into an easily understood language supported by enlightening interview evidence. This is a recommended read for anyone looking for insight into the thoughts and motivations of young European jihadists." -- Laura Welty, International Affairs\n"This brilliant, indispensable book provides the first truly sociological explanation of Jihadism in Europe: Violent fanaticism is produced first by humiliating social exclusion, then by the failure of Western secular utopias. Farhad Khosrokhavar is masterful thinker of enormous reach." -- Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University\n"Farhad Khosrokhavar is a distinguished French sociologist with a long record of thought-provoking writings on Islamist political movements and the extremist fringe. His new book will stimulate healthy debate. Khosrokhavar is willing to say decidedly un-PC things about the roots of jihadism. This is not an alarmist book but Khosrokhavar recognizes the gravity of the threat posed by jihadist extremism to the social fabric of Europe's cities." -- Jyette Klausen, Brandeis University\n"Professor Farhad Khosrokhavar is the only social scientist in the world that could have written such a unique book. An unrivalled book, that offers the best and clearest analysis one can conceive on Jihadism in Europe, as a total phenomenon, in its multiple dimensions - political, and geo-political, psychological, social, cultural, religious." -- Michel Wieviorka, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales\nEuropean jihadism is a multi-faceted social phenomenon. It is not only linked to the extremist behavior of a limited group, but also to a much more global crisis, including the lack of a utopian vision and a loss of meaning among the middle classes, and the humiliation and denial of citizenship among disaffiliated young people in poor districts all over Western Europe.\nThis book explores how European jihadism is fundamentally grounded in an unbridled and modern imagination, in an uneasy relationship with social, cultural, and economic reality. That imagination emerges among: young women and their longing for another family model; adolescents and their desire to become adults and to overcome the family crisis; people with mental problems for whom jihad is a catharsis; and young converts who seek contrast with a disenchanted secular Europe. The family and its crisis, in many ways, plays a role in promoting jihadism, particularly in families of immigrant origin whose relationship to patriarchy is different from that of the mainstream society in Europe. Exclusion from mainstream society is also a factor: at the urban level, a large proportion of jihadists come from poor, stigmatized, and ethnically segregated districts. But jihadism is also an expression of the loss of hope in the future in a globalized world among middle class and lower-class youth.