Two internationally recognized experts use newly available documents from al- Qaeda and ISIS to explain how jihadist groups think, grow, and adapt. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Thomas Joscelyn recast militant groups as learning organizations, detailing their embrace of strategic, tactical, and technological innovation.
This memoir of first a spiritual and then a political seduction shows how a good faith can be distorted and a decent soul can be seduced away from its principles. Raised in liberal Ashland, Oregon, by parents who were Jewish by birth but dismissive of dogma, Gartenstein-Ross yearned for a religion that would suit all his ideals. At college in the late nineties he met a charismatic Muslim student who grounded his political activism with thoughtful religious conviction. Gartenstein-Ross reflects on his experience of converting to Islam--a process that began with a desire to connect with both a religious community and a spiritual practice, and eventually led him to sympathize with the most extreme interpretations of the faith. Gartenstein-Ross is now an attorney and a full-time counterterrorism consultant.--From publisher description.