The Future of Terrorism

ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Alt-Right

By: Walter Laqueur, and Christopher Wall

Narrated by: Christopher Price

Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

In this fascinating audiobook, an expert on terrorism and an expert on counterterrorism answer the two questions everyone is asking about the rise of terrorism today: why is this happening, and when will it end?

Since the death of bin Laden in 2011, ISIS has risen, al-Qaeda has expanded its reach, and right-wing extremists have surged in the United States for the same simple reason: terrorism works. It’s not caused by psychosis or irrationality, as the media often suggests. Instead, it’s terrifyingly logical. Violent acts produce political results.

To show why, Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall explore the history, rationales, and precepts of terrorism, from the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, through the terror campaigns by Irish and Indian nationalists, and to the Nazis and Italian Fascists.

To explain why terror is on the rise again, they show how the American invasion of Iraq created the conditions for the emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, part of which metastasized into ISIS, while Russia’s increasing intervention in Syria allowed both of the organizations to evolve.

The Future of Terrorism brings reason to a topic usually ruled by fear. Laqueur and Wall show the structural features behind contemporary terrorism: how bad governance abets terror; the link between poverty and terrorism; why religious terrorism is more dangerous than secular; and the nature of supposed “lone wolf” terrorists.

Fear alone provides no tools to combat the future of terrorism. This audiobook does.

©2018 Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

Decent book minus the political rhetoric

I've studied terrorism and counterterrorism quite extensively, through college and on my own. This book is decent and in-depth on current terror groups. If you're looking for a book pertaining to the "hows" and "whys" of terrorism this is not the book. It's more of an analytical analysis of current groups. Not what caused them or the individuals to become terrorist. My only pet peeve about this book is the periodic political rhetoric that is not only extremely misleading but sometimes flat out false. You can definitely tell which side of the isle the author sits on.

A great historical overview of ideas

This book by one of the great American thinkers and researchers on the topic of terrorism is a useful book that should be read by anybody interested in terrorism and counterterrorism in the US. Hindsight is 20/20, but the last part of this book is lacking and suffers from political bias, especially a deathly aversion to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Lacqueur goes off on the horrors of the political reality in 2018, would have dropped dead if he had seen the 2020 assault on the Capitol, but more seriously, could never have had the open-mindedness to consider the elimination of al-Baghdadi and the collapse of ISIS, the Abraham Accords, the disastrous Afghanistan pullout under another president or the current newfound admiration for Palestinian terrorists in Academia, reminiscent of the late 1960s-early 1970s. Like most researchers, his predictions for the "future of terrorism" are off and completely outdated, but most of the book offers, nevertheless, a solid analysis of different themes, myths and realities of terrorism, as seen through an American, Western liberal lens.