Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe

By Zachary Shore

Book Overview

Outstanding Academic Title for 2007, Choice Magazine

While American leaders wage war on extremists in the Middle East, they are dangerously detached from a potentially greater threat closer to home. In Breeding Bin Ladens, Zachary Shore asserts that the growing ambivalence of Europe's Muslims poses risks to national identities, international security, and the transatlantic alliance.

Europe's failure to integrate its Muslim millions, combined with America's battered image in the Muslim world, have left too many Western Muslims easy prey for violent dogmas. Until America and Europe adopt new strategies, Shore argues, Europe will increasingly become the incubation ground for breeding new Bin Ladens.

The United States continues to spend billions of dollars and lose thousands of its young men and women to combat Islamic extremists, a group estimated to be as small as fifty thousand. What Western leaders have not done, says Shore, is seek to understand the millions of moderate Muslims who live peacefully in the United States and Europe. Many in this extraordinarily diverse group are deeply ambivalent toward perceived Western values. Although they may admire America's economic or technological might, many are appalled by its crass consumerism, sexualization of women, lack of social justice, and foreign policies.

Shore taps into this oft-ignored perspective through in-depth interviews with Muslims living across the European Union. He gives voice to people of deep faith who speak of the conflict between their desire to integrate into their adopted societies and the repulsion they feel toward some of what the West represents.

Shore offers a deeply nuanced and hopeful consideration of Islam's future in the West. Cautioning Western leaders against an anti-terrorist tunnel vision that could ultimately backfire, Shore proposes bold, creative, and controversial solutions for attracting the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims living in the West.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801885051
• ISBN13: 9780801885051
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

An important work for understanding muslems living in the west.

Dr. Shore conducted interviews of muslems living in western Europe to try and understanding the way in which their experience of balancing their religious views in the context of Western European secular values can inform policy-makers and citizens alike about this important component of our community. The book is perhaps less apocolyptic than the title, but the content is no less fascinating for its insights. Shore introduces the reader to men and women who are primarily moderate muslems, who are nevertheless, wrestling with the challenges of Western cultural practices that are often offensive or harmful in their eyes. Shore also discusses various recent controversies, such as the battle of the veil iun France, the murder of Theo van Gough in Holland, and the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Dr. Shore has a number of policy suggestions for how to keep this large segment of the muslem community in the fold of the West, and relatively immune to the calls of radical clerics. Overall Shore tone is one of concern, but tinged with optomism. He places in important historical context assimilation processies of earlier eras, when seemingly intractable, radical religious groups lived in the West, and yet did not wax more destructive or nilistic. Anyone wishing to understand the cultural, political, and historical contexts of Islam in the West should read this book.

Document the problems and outline possible solutions.

BREEDING BIN LADENS: AMERICA, ISLAM AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE covers the heart of terrorist activity: in the communities which foster and harbor Muslim militants: Europe itself. Here is associate professor Zachary Shore's argument that the growing ambivalence of Europe's Muslim community poses risks to international security and national alliances, and that Europe's failure to integrate its Muslim communities are leading to breeding grounds for terrorist activities. Interviews with Muslims living across Europe document the problems and outline possible solutions. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch