General readers looking for a comprehensive guide to this serious global challenge will find this a rewarding, if sobering,...
A concise summary of the background and present state of Islamic militancy.
Guardian South Asian correspondent Burke (The 9/11 Wars, 2011, etc.) sets out to explain the history and theoretical underpinnings of insurgent Islam and to describe and evaluate the most prominent groups engaged in armed struggle. He succeeds admirably on both counts. The author’s more than 20 years' experience in reporting on Islamic militancy permits him to write with authority about the motivations, attitudes, and capabilities of the various militant groups. He rejects the belief that "Islamic militancy represents some kind of regressive historical riptide" and calls the "global war on terror" a "monumentally misconceived strategy which is in part to blame for the spread of radical Islamic militancy over the last decade." Burke traces today's Islamic militancy to a resurgence of Muslim faith identities in the 1970s and shows how Saudi oil money has been used to spread the intolerant Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam worldwide. He also ably sets out the evolution of militants' religious and political theories from the 1920s to the frightening current theory of "leaderless jihad." The author brings an unusual clarity to the discussion of this new movement and to his exposition of the theory and practice of Islamic militancy, including its creative uses of the Internet and social media to promote extremist ideologies. Burke clearly describes the differences between the aims and capabilities of al-Qaida and the Islamic State and of the growing number of independent actors disingenuously dismissed as "lone wolves" by security services. Western readers may take some scant comfort in the author's observation that while "the indirect impact of Islamic militancy on [Westerners'] lives is significant…the real impact of Islamic militancy will not be felt in the places where this book is likely to be read." Burke covers a lot of important ground in a compact narrative.
General readers looking for a comprehensive guide to this serious global challenge will find this a rewarding, if sobering, read.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62097-135-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
However charily one should apply the word, a beautiful book, an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time.
Maya Angelou is a natural writer with an inordinate sense of life and she has written an exceptional autobiographical narrative which retrieves her first sixteen years from "the general darkness just beyond the great blinkers of childhood."
Her story is told in scenes, ineluctably moving scenes, from the time when she and her brother were sent by her fancy living parents to Stamps, Arkansas, and a grandmother who had the local Store. Displaced they were and "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat." But alternating with all the pain and terror (her rape at the age of eight when in St. Louis With her mother) and humiliation (a brief spell in the kitchen of a white woman who refused to remember her name) and fear (of a lynching—and the time they buried afflicted Uncle Willie under a blanket of vegetables) as well as all the unanswered and unanswerable questions, there are affirmative memories and moments: her charming brother Bailey; her own "unshakable God"; a revival meeting in a tent; her 8th grade graduation; and at the end, when she's sixteen, the birth of a baby. Times When as she says "It seemed that the peace of a day's ending was an assurance that the covenant God made with children, Negroes and the crippled was still in effect."
However charily one should apply the word, a beautiful book, an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1969
ISBN: 0375507892
Page Count: 235
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1969
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.
An analysis of our emotions and the skills required to understand them.
We all have emotions, but how many of us have the vocabulary to accurately describe our experiences or to understand how our emotions affect the way we act? In this guide to help readers with their emotions, Brackett, the founding director of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a five-step method he calls R.U.L.E.R.: We need to recognize our emotions, understand what has caused them, be able to label them with precise terms and descriptions, know how to safely and effectively express them, and be able to regulate them in productive ways. The author walks readers through each step and provides an intriguing tool to use to help identify a specific emotion. Brackett introduces a four-square grid called a Mood Meter, which allows one to define where an emotion falls based on pleasantness and energy. He also uses four colors for each quadrant: yellow for high pleasantness and high energy, red for low pleasantness and high energy, green for high pleasantness and low energy, and blue for low pleasantness and low energy. The idea is to identify where an emotion lies in this grid in order to put the R.U.L.E.R. method to good use. The author’s research is wide-ranging, and his interweaving of his personal story with the data helps make the book less academic and more accessible to general readers. It’s particularly useful for parents and teachers who want to help children learn to handle difficult emotions so that they can thrive rather than be overwhelmed by them. The author’s system will also find use in the workplace. “Emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor,” writes Brackett. “They influence everything from leadership effectiveness to building and maintaining complex relationships, from innovation to customer relations.”
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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