Scott Atran

The first half of this book is exceptionally good. It offers rare and insightful ethnographic descriptions of his encounters with terrorists, and helps us to understanding what they think. His argument, in a nutshell, is that "People, including terrorists, don't simply die for a cause; they die for each other, especially their friends." Religious conviction plays a role, but is rarely determinative when compared with cohorts of friends and relatives moving together for a common goal, like a fraternity. For that reason reasoned arguments about theology is pointless.

The second half of the book focuses on discussions of more theoretical topics such as the evolutionary significance of religion (drawing upon Atran's earlier works). While interesting, they seem almost peripheral to the central argument of this book. Since it comes in at over 500 pages, some of this could have been condensed and more intimately connected to the core thesis, for a tighter (and slimmer) tome.

I don't give it higher marks because his story ends in 2010, before the rise of ISIS. The changes that represent don't seem to be well anticipated by Atran, who focuses on Al Qaeda, and thus the book has a dated feel. For that reason this work benefits from being paired with more recent efforts, such as Graeme Wood's The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State. Although journalistic and not anthropological, and definitely opinionated, it shares with Talking to the Enemy an interest in letting the actors speak for themselves.… (altro)