Alan Judd on Marc Sageman’s latest book
Marc Sageman is deservedly one of the best-known academics working on terrorism. A clinical psychologist and former CIA officer, in 2004 he published Understanding Terror Networks, a book which enlarged the way the subject was seen. Hitherto, most researchers and governments had located the ‘root causes’ of terrorism either in religion (Islam) or in social and economic conditions. A third approach, the biographical, offered fascinating case-histories of terrorists thought to be mad or incomprehensibly evil and who generally turned out to be rather more commonplace.
Sageman’s achievement was to start with evidence, not theory. He constructed a database of 172 terrorists and looked at what their lives had been, and particularly at whom they knew. This led to his ‘bunch of guys’ theory: essentially, that people become terrorists by joining groups and then influencing each other to commit acts of terrorism.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in