How a new understanding of warfare can help the military fight today’s conflicts more effectivelyThe way wars are fought has changed starkly over the past sixty years. International military campaigns used to play out between large armies at central fronts. Today's conflicts find major powers facing rebel insurgencies that deploy elusive methods, from improvised explosives to terrorist attacks. Small Wars, Big Data presents a transformative understanding o...

Applying fresh tools from economics to explain puzzling behaviors of religious radicals: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish; violent and benign.How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals. In

The most common image of world politics involves states negotiating, cooperating, or sometimes fighting with one another; billiard balls in motion on a global pool table. Yet working through local proxies or agents, through what Eli Berman and David A. Lake call a strategy of "indirect control," has always been a central tool of foreign policy. Understanding how countries motivate local allies to act in sometimes costly ways, and when and how that strategy succeeds, is ess...

Small Wars, Big Data provides groundbreaking perspectives for how small wars can be better strategized and favorably won to the benefit of the local population. The authors show that a revolution in the study of conflict-enabled by vast data, rich qualitative evidence, and modern methods-yields new insights into terrorism, civil wars, and foreign interventions. Modern warfare is not about struggles over territory but over people; civilians-and the information they might choose to ...

David Kilcullen is one of the world's most influential experts on counterinsurgency and modern warfare. A Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq, his vision of war dramatically influenced America's decision to rethink its military strategy in Iraq and implement "the surge." Now, in The Accidental Guerrilla, Kilcullen provides a remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminatin...

In Islamic Exceptionalism, Brookings Institution scholar and acclaimed author Shadi Hamid offers a novel and provocative argument on how Islam is, in fact, "exceptional" in how it relates to politics, with profound implications for how we understand the future of the Middle East. Divides among citizens aren't just about power but are products of fundamental disagreements over the very nature and purpose of the modern nation state—and the vexing problem of religion's role in public...

Now with a new Preface and Afterword by the author“Outstanding . . . [Isobel Coleman] takes us into remote villages and urban bureaucracies to find the brave men and women working to create change in the Middle East.”—Los Angeles TimesInthis timely and important book, Isobel Coleman shows how Muslim women and men across the Middle East are working within Islam to fight for women’s rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism. J...

“A compelling account . . . and a reminder that a true peace can be built only on justice.”—Desmond M. TutuTending one’s fields, visiting a relative, going to the hospital: for ordinary Palestinians, such activities require negotiating permits and passes, curfews and closures, “sterile roads” and “seam zones”—bureaucratic hurdles ultimately as deadly as outright military incursion. In Palestine Inside Out, Saree Makdisi draws on eye-opening statistics, aca...

America's leading observer of the international scene on the minute-by-minute events of September 11, 2001--before, during and after .As the Foreign Affairs columnist for the The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman is in a unique position to interpret the world for American readers. Twice a week, Friedman's celebrated commentary provides the most trenchant, pithy,and illuminating perspective in journalism.Longitudes and Attitudes contains t...

Crosby, Stills & Nash created some of the most indelible songs and beautiful harmonies of the late 1960s and early 1970s: "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Woodstock," "Teach Your Children."This copiously illustrated account of the trio's personal and musical history tells the story behind the songs. Longtime CSN chronicler Dave Zimmer, with the full cooperation of the band, traces all of the performers from their musical roots to their first song together in L.A.'s storied...

For two decades, militant jihadism has been one of the world's most pressing security crises. In civil wars and insurgencies across the Muslim world, certain Islamist groups have taken advantage of the anarchy to establish political control over a broad range of territories and communities. In effect, they have built radical new jihadist proto-states. Why have some ideologically-inspired Islamists been able to build state-like polities out of civil war stalemate, while many other armed gro...

John L. Esposito is one of America's leading authorities on Islam. Now, in this brilliant portrait of Islam today--and tomorrow--he draws on a lifetime of thought and research to sweep away the negative stereotypes and provide an accurate, richly nuanced, and revelatory account of the fastest growing religion in the world. Here Esposito explores the major questions and issues that face Islam in the 21st century and that will deeply affect global politics. Are Islam and the West locked in a...