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

by Zachary Shore

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.

Genres: History

223 pages, Hardcover

First published August 28, 2006

About the author

Zachary Shore is Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He previously served on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State through an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also worked as a National Security Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, DC.

Shore earned his doctorate in modern European history from St. Antony's College, Oxford, and has lived for more than six years in Europe, traveling for extended periods across the continent, including Germany, Russia, and the Balkans. His academic honors include winning Harvard's Derek Bok Teaching Award, Oxford's St. Antony's Book Prize, a Dupont Fellowship, an Idea Prize from Germany's Kõrber Foundation, and research grants from the Fulbright Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Daimler-Chrysler Foundation, Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain. He has appeared on National Public Radio, Dialogue, and other media outlets.

Shore’s articles and editorials on foreign policy have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, Haaretz, The National Interest, Orbis, The Journal of Contemporary History, and Intelligence and National Security. His books have been reviewed and profiled in Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, Washington Monthly, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The New Republic On-line.

Reviews

[إيمان الشريف · Rating 5 out of 5]

هذا الكتاب هو بحث اجتماعي ممتع حول مسلمي أوروبا وأميركا، سواء المهاجرين، أو الجيل الثاني الذين ولدوا بالفعل في دول أوروبية، لكنهم عاجزون عن الاندماج. الكتاب يبحث في أسباب عجزهم عن الاندماج، وأسباب كراهيتهم للولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، ولماذا تسهل استمالتهم للتطرف.

الكتاب مكّون من ثماني فصول، وينتهي بتوصيات من البروفيسور زاكاري شور للحكومات (الأمريكية خصوصاً) لتسهيل اندماج المسلمين.

النسخة الإنجليزية من هذا الكتاب خرجت إلى النور عام 2006، أي قبل اغتيال بن لادن بعدة سنوات، ولهذا حمل الكتاب هذا الاسم.

حتى اللحظة التي انتهيت فيها من قراءة هذا الكتاب، لم أكن أعرف أن المؤلف ضرير، وحين عرفت هذه المعلومة تأثرت بشكل لا يوصف، فهو برأيي إنجاز أقرب إلى الإعجاز
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كتاب مفيد ورائع، وأنصح بقراءته لمن يحبون الأبحاث الاجتماعية.

[Harith Alrashid · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب اخر عن المسلمين في اوروبا ومشكلة اندماجهم مع المجتمع ومن ثم نزعتهم الى التطرف