Penn Press Log

Israel Independence Day Reading

Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography
Anita Shapira
Translated by Evelyn Abel
392 pages | 6 x 9 | 29 illus.
Cloth 2007 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4028-3 | $49.95 | £32.50
A volume in the Jewish Culture and Contexts series

A bestseller in Israel, Yigal Allon, Native Son is the only biography of the charismatic leader. Born in 1918 into the fabric of Arab-Jewish frontier life at the foot of Mt. Tabor, Allon rose to become commander of the Palmah, one of the founding figures of the state of Israel and an architect of its politics. The book  focuses on Allon's life up to 1950, his clash with founding father David Ben-Gurion, the end of his military career, and the watershed in culture and character between the Jewish Yishuv and Israeli statehood.

The story of Allon's life frames the history of Israel, its relationship with its Arab neighbors, its culture and spirit. This biography touches on matters--Israel's borders, refugees, military might--that remain very much alive today.

Human Rights in the Arab World--Now in Paperback

Human Rights in the Arab World: Independent Voices
Edited by Anthony Chase and Amr Hamzawy
336 pages | 6 x 9
Paper 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2032-2 | $24.95 | £16.50
A volume in the Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights series

This is the first book in English that draws together the work of intellectuals at the forefront of research on the Arab region's key human rights issues. Its empirical and theoretical focus is on the historical and contemporary place of human rights in Arab politics and the obstacles to advancing rights in the region.

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Time Magazine Reviews Leaderless Jihad

This week, Time magazine became the latest major publication to review Marc Sageman's new study of Islamist terrorism, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century.

Time's Aryn Baker writes, "...Leaderless Jihad discredits conventional wisdom about terrorists by eschewing anecdotes and conjecture in favor of hard data and statistics."

The complete review is available in the March 31 issue of Time and at www.time.com.

Washington Post Op-Ed on Sageman's Leaderless Jihad

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has this to say about Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century:

Politicians who talk about the terrorism threat -- and it's already clear that this will be a polarizing issue in the 2008 campaign -- should be required to read a new book by a former CIA officer named Marc Sageman. It stands what you think you know about terrorism on its head and helps you see the topic in a different light.

The complete column is available at washingtonpost.com.

Marc Sageman on YouTube

Jihad and 21st Century Terrorism
A Discussion with Marc Sageman on Leaderless Jihad
Hosted by the New America Foundation on February 20, 2008

Marc Sageman is the author of Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century and Understanding Terror Networks.

Praise for Sageman in The Washington Times

Marc Sageman continues to receive praise for his new book, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century. The latest commendation comes from Joshua Sinai in The Washington Times editorial pages.

"Dr. Sageman's incisive observations based on carefully examined evidence, astute insights and scholarship make Leaderless Jihad the gold standard in al Qaeda studies," says Sinai in a February 19th piece on the book .

The complete editorial is available at www.washingtontimes.com.

Leaderless Jihad--Now Available

Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century
Marc Sageman
208 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4065-8 | $24.95 | £16.50

Building on his previous groundbreaking work on the Al Qaeda network, forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman has greatly expanded his research to explain how Islamic terrorism emerges and operates in the twenty-first century.

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Leaderless Jihad Reviewed in The Economist

Here's a bit of what the January 31st Books & Arts section of The Economist had to say about Marc Sageman's Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century.

It might be comforting to think that angry young Islamists are crazed psychopaths or sex-starved adolescents who have been brainwashed in malign madrassas. But Mr Sageman. . . explodes each of these myths, and others besides, in an unsettling account of how al-Qaeda has evolved from the organisation headed by Osama bin Laden into an amorphous movement—a “leaderless jihad”.

The complete review, "How Jihad Went Freelance," is available at Economist.com.

Globe and Mail Looks at Post 9/11 Books

The Globe and Mail's January 26th Books section featured critiques of the new crop of major books examining the social and political issues surrounding terrorism. Leaderless Jihad, the forthcoming book by Marc Sageman, was among those titles.

The review of Leaderless Jihad is available at the www.globeandmail.com.

Sageman Offers "Common Sense"

"[Marc] Sageman takes the common sense view that you can't defeat an enemy until you know them and understand what drives them," writes David Isenberg in an Asia Times review of the forthcoming Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century.

The complete review is available at www.atimes.com.