Book picks similar to
Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium by David S. Katz
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terrorism
eschatology-christian
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Standing With Righteous Rage
William Alan Webb - 2020
Steeple’s dream of a totalitarian America under his hand as benevolent dictator can now become a reality, even if it means making common cause with America’s mortal enemies. No treachery is too great to fulfill his ambitions, and those of his friends.But American patriotism doesn’t die that easily, and Steeple just might find out that men and women still exist to protect those who can’t protect themselves. Regardless of the odds, some people take their service oaths seriously, even unto death.Such courage always has a cost, though, and this time the cost is high.
The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror
Ronald Kessler - 2000
Yet the CIA is a closed and secretive world-impenetrable to generations of journalists-and few Americans know what really goes on among the spy masters who plot America's worldwide campaign against terrorists.Only Ronald Kessler, an award-winning former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, could have gained the unprecedented access to tell the story. Kessler interviewed fifty current CIA officers, including all the agency's top officials, and toured areas of the CIA the media has never seen. The agency actively encouraged retired CIA officers and officials to talk with him as well. In six years as director, George J. Tenet has never appeared on TV shows and has given only a handful of print interviews, all before 9/11, but Tenet agreed to be interviewed by Kessler for this book. He spoke candidly and passionately about the events of 9/11, the war on terror, the agency's intelligence on Iraq, and the controversies surrounding the agency.The CIA at War tells the inside story of how Tenet, a son of Greek immigrants, turned around the CIA from a pathetic, risk averse outfit to one that has rolled up 3,000 terrorists since 9/11, was critically important to winning in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now kills terrorists with its Predator drone aircraft.The book portrays Tenet as a true American hero, one who overcame every kind of Washington obstacle and the destructive actions of previous director John Deutch to make the agency a success. As Tenet said in a recent speech, "Nowhere in the world could the son of an immigrant stand before you as the director of Central Intelligence. This is simply the greatest country on the face of the earth."The CIA at War discloses highly sensitive information about the CIA's unorthodox methods and its stunning successes and shocking failures. The book explores whether the CIA can be trusted, whether its intelligence is politicized, and whether it is capable of winning the war on terror. In doing so, the book weaves in the history of the CIA and how it really works. It is the definitive account of the agency.From the CIA's intelligence failure of 9/11 to its critical role in preventing further attacks, The CIA at War tells a riveting, unique story about a secretive, powerful agency and its confrontation with global terrorism.
Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of ISI and RAW
Adrian Levy - 2021
and the I.S.I.With unprecedented access to the R.A.W. and the I.S.I., the world’s most inscrutable spy agencies, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark describe the workings of bitter rivals, mapping their complicated history from the 1960s to the present day. From the Parliament attacks to Pulwama, 9/11 to Osama bin Laden’s assassination, the rise of terror’s shadow armies to the fall of Kulbhushan Jadhav, here are some of the key events that have shaped the region, told from the split viewpoints of duelling enemies.Levy and Scott-Clark also uncover a darker seam – of the destructive impact of C.I.A. interference, and how the I.S.I. fought for its life against dark forces it once funded, while the R.A.W. created ghost enemies to strengthen its hand.Revelatory and unputdownable, Spy Stories clears the fog to reveal the spies and their assets, as you have never seen them before.
The Muslims are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror
Arun Kundnani - 2014
Another sixty officers surrounded the building on that October morning, the culmination of a two-year undercover investigation that had infiltrated the imam’s Detroit mosque. The FBI quickly claimed that Luqman Abdullah was “the leader of a domestic terrorist group.” And yet, caught on tape, he had refused to help “do something” violent, as it might injure innocents, and no terrorism charges were ever lodged against him.Jameel Scott thought he was exercising his rights when he went to challenge an Israeli official’s lecture at Manchester University. But the teenager’s presence at the protest with fellow socialists made him the subject of police surveillance for the next two years. Counterterrorism agents visited his parents, his relatives, his school. They asked him for activists’ names and told him not to attend demonstrations. They called his mother and told her to move the family to another neighborhood. Although he doesn’t identify as Muslim, Jameel had become another face of the presumed homegrown terrorist.The new front in the War on Terror is the “homegrown enemy,” domestic terrorists who have become the focus of sprawling counterterrorism structures of policing and surveillance in the United States and across Europe. Domestic surveillance has mushroomed—at least 100,000 Muslims in America have been secretly under scrutiny. British police compiled a secret suspect list of more than 8,000 al-Qaeda “sympathizers,” and in another operation included almost 300 children fifteen and under among the potential extremists investigated. MI5 doubled in size in just five years.Based on several years of research and reportage, in locations as disparate as Texas, New York, and Yorkshire, and written in engrossing, precise prose, this is the first comprehensive critique of counterradicalization strategies. The new policy and policing campaigns have been backed by an industry of freshly minted experts and liberal commentators. The Muslims Are Coming! looks at the way these debates have been transformed by the embrace of a narrowly configured and ill-conceived antiextremism.
ISIS: The State of Terror
Jessica Stern - 2015
It has captured the imagination of the global jihadist movement, attracting recruits in unprecedented numbers and wreaking bloody destruction with a sadistic glee that has alienated even the hardcore terrorists of its parent organization, al Qaeda.Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, two of America’s leading experts on terrorism, dissect the new model for violent extremism that ISIS has leveraged into an empire of death in Iraq and Syria, and an international network that is rapidly expanding in the Middle East, North Africa and around the world.ISIS: The State of Terror traces the ideological innovations that the group deploys to recruit unprecedented numbers of Westerners, the composition of its infamous snuff videos, and the technological tools it exploits on social media to broadcast its atrocities, and its recruiting pitch to the world, including its success at attracting thousands of Western adherents. The authors examine ISIS’s predatory abuse of women and children and its use of horror to manipulate world leaders and its own adherents as it builds its twisted society. The authors offer a much-needed perspective on how world leaders should prioritize and respond to ISIS’s deliberate and insidious provocations.
Hostage
Elie Wiesel - 2010
His captors, an Arab and an Italian, don’t explain why the innocent Shaltiel has been chosen, just that his life will be bartered for the freedom of three Palestinian prisoners. As his days of waiting commence, Shaltiel resorts to what he does best, telling stories—to himself and to the men who hold his fate in their hands. With beauty and sensitivity, Wiesel builds the world of Shaltiel’s memories, haunted by the Holocaust and a Europe in the midst of radical change. A Communist brother, a childhood spent hiding from the Nazis in a cellar, the kindness of liberating Russian soldiers, the unrest of the 1960s—these are the stories that unfold in Shaltiel’s captivity, as the outside world breathlessly follows his disappearance and the police move toward a final confrontation with his captors. Impassioned, provocative and insistently humane, Hostage is both a masterly thriller and a profoundly wise meditation on the power of memory to connect us to the past and our shared need for resolution.
Global FreeMasonry
Harun Yahya - 2002
Some have accused Masonry of fantastic crimes and misdeeds. However, instead of trying to understand "the Brotherhood" and criticizing it objectively, critics have been unduly hostile to the organization.This book contains a true exposition of Masonry as a school of thought. The most important unifying influence among Masons is their philosophy—which can be best described according to such terms as "materialism" and "secular humanism." But, it is an errant philosophy based on false suppositions and flawed theories, as you will see in this book.In this book, the reader will also be presented with a summary of the history of the Masons’ struggle against theistic religions. Freemasons have played an important role in distancing Europe from religious moral values, and in their place, founding of a new order based on the philosophies of materialism and secular humanism. The reader will also see how Masonry has been influential in the imposition of these dogmas—and a social order based on them—on non-Western civilizations.After reading this book, the reader will be able to consider many aspects, from schools of philosophy to newspaper headlines, rock songs to political ideologies, with a deeper understanding, and better discern the meaning and aims behind events and factors.
Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior
Mark Rathbun - 2013
This autobiographical history of Scientology is told by one of L. Ron Hubbard’s staunchest defenders.
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017
Rashid Khalidi - 2020
He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, "in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone." Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi's great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members - mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists - The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.Cover photograph Amnon Bar Or—Tal Gazit Architects LTD
Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism
Karima Bennoune - 2013
In Senegal, wheelchair-bound Aissatou Cisse produced a comic book to illustrate the injustices faced by disabled women and girls. In Algeria, publisher Omar Belhouchet and his journalists struggled to put out their paper, El Watan (The Nation), the same night that a 1996 jihadist bombing devastated their offices and killed eighteen of their colleagues. In Afghanistan, Young Women for Change took to the streets of Kabul to denounce sexual harassment, undeterred by threats. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Abdirizak Bihi organized a Ramadan basketball tournament among Somali refugees to counter the influence of Al Shabaab. From Karachi to Tunis, Kabul to Tehran, across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and beyond, these trailblazers often risked death to combat the rising tide of fundamentalism within their own countries. But this global community of writers, artists, doctors, musicians, museum curators, lawyers, activists, and educators of Muslim heritage remains largely invisible, lost amid the heated coverage of Islamist terror attacks on one side and abuses perpetrated against suspected terrorists on the other.A veteran of twenty years of human rights research and activism, Karima Bennoune draws on extensive fieldwork and interviews to illuminate the inspiring stories of those who represent one of the best hopes for ending fundamentalist oppression worldwide.
Kinds of Power: A Guide to Its Intelligent Uses
James Hillman - 1995
"Empowerment," writes best-selling Jungian analyst James Hillman, "comes from understanding the widest spectrum of possibilities for embracing power." If food means only meat and potatoes, your body suffers from your ignorance. When your idea of food expands, so does your strength. So it is with power. "James Hillman," says Robert Bly, "is the most lively and original psychologist we have had in America since William James." In Kinds Of Power, Hillman addresses himself for the first time to a subject of great interest to business people. He gives much needed substance to the subject by showing us a broad experience of power, rooted in the body, the rnind, and the emotions, rather than the customary narrow interpretation that simply equates power with strength. Hillman's "anatomy" of power explores two dozen expressions of power every artful leader must understand and use, including: the language of power, control, influence, resistance, leadership, prestige, authority, exhibitionism, charisma, ambition, reputation, fearsomeness, tyranny, purism, subtle power, growth, and efficiency.From the Hardcover edition.
The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going
Ryan P. Burge - 2021
Burge details a comprehensive picture of an increasingly significant group--Americans who say they have no religious affiliation.The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade.Burge illustrates his precise but accessible descriptions with charts and graphs drawn from over a dozen carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time, others large enough to allow a statistical deep dive on subgroups such as atheists and agnostics. Burge also draws on data that tracks how individuals move in and out of religion over time, helping readers understand what type of people become nones and what factors lead an individual to return to religion.The Nones gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. Burge explains how this rise happened, who the nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion.
The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography
David Brody - 2018
Trump explores his rarely discussed, but deeply important, religious beliefs and relationships with leading Evangelicals.
The Chief Political Correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network and the "Jesus in the Public Square" columnist for the Washington Times explore the rarely discussed, but deeply important, religious beliefs and worldview of Donald J. Trump and his advisors.Donald J. Trump was raised as a Presbyterian and has praised both Christianity and the primacy of the Bible. In the Oval Office, he has surrounded himself with close advisors who share his deep faith. In this deeply reported book, David Brody and Scott Lamb draw on unparalleled access to the White House to explain President Trump’s connection to the Christian faith, the evangelical right, the prosperity gospel, and the pressing moral and ethical issues of our day.In part, the authors argue, President Trump won over evangelicals not by pandering to them, but by supporting them and all their most important issues without pretending to be something he’s not. Though the forty-fifth president is far from the perfect vessel—he has been married three times—his supporters argue that Donald Trump may be just what America needs. This book reveals how he has surrounded himself with believers who think he is the one guiding figure who can return us to the traditional values—hard work, discipline, duty, respect, and faith—that have long been the foundation of American life, and truly make America great again in all ways.
Adi Shankara
Anant Pai - 1974
Amazingly fearless yet dutiful, scholarly yet humble, young Shankara packed several lifetimes into his 32 brilliant years. He travelled and toiled, suffered joys and sorrows, and eventually perfected a philosophical system that, more than a thousand years later, still instructs and guides seekers of the ultimate Truth.
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin - 2004
Yet under the magnifying glass of David Ray Griffin, eminent theologian & author of The New Pearl Harbor, the report appears much shabbier. In fact, there are holes in the places where detail ought to be thickest: Is it possible that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has given three different stories of what he was doing the morning of 9/11, & that the Commission combines two of them & ignores eyewitness reports to the contrary? That the Commission fails even to mention Coleen Rowley, FBI whistleblower & Time person of the year? Griffin's critique of the Kean-Zelikow report makes clear that that the Commission charged with investigating all of the facts surrounding 9/11 has succeeded in obscuring, rather than unearthing, the truth.