{"product_id":"the-rise-and-fall-of-al-qaeda","title":"The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this concise and fascinating book, Fawaz A. Gerges argues that Al-Qaeda has degenerated into a fractured, marginal body kept alive largely by the self-serving anti-terrorist bureaucracy it helped to spawn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, Gerges, a public intellectual known widely for his expertise on radical ideologies, including jihadism, argues that the Western powers have become mired in a \"terrorism narrative,\" stemming from the mistaken belief that America is in danger of a devastating attack by a crippled al-Qaeda. To explain why al-Qaeda is no longer a threat, he provides a briskly written history of the organization, showing its emergence from the disintegrating local jihadist movements of the mid-1990s-not just the Afghan resistance of the 1980s, as many believe-in \"a desperate effort to rescue a sinking ship by altering its course.\" During this period, Gerges interviewed many jihadis, gaining a first-hand view of the movement that bin Laden tried to reshape by internationalizing it. Gerges reveals that transnational jihad has attracted but a small minority within the Arab world and possesses no viable social and popular base. Furthermore, he shows that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were a major miscalculation--no \"river\" of fighters flooded from Arab countries to defend al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as bin Laden expected. The democratic revolutions that swept the Middle East in early 2011 show that al-Qaeda today is a non-entity which exercises no influence over Arabs' political life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGerges shows that there is a link between the new phenomenon of homegrown extremism in Western societies and the war on terror, particularly in Afghanistan-Pakistan, and that homegrown terror exposes the structural weakness, not strength, of bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Gerges concludes that the movement has splintered into feuding factions, neutralizing itself more effectively than any Predator drone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eForceful, incisive, and written with extensive inside knowledge, this book will alter the debate on global terrorism., ISBN13: 9780199790654 ISBN10: 0199790655 Material Type: hardcover\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CheapBookDepot","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46126590722211,"sku":"FA_06-19-25_ART_20000BML","price":30.16,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0607\/9227\/5107\/files\/516JfOOHqZL.jpg?v=1754895093","url":"https:\/\/usedbookdepot.com\/products\/the-rise-and-fall-of-al-qaeda","provider":"Used Book Depot","version":"1.0","type":"link"}