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MODERN HISTORY AND POLITICS
Political Islam: A Critical Reader, ed. by Frédéric Volpi. London and New York: Routledge, 2011. 471 pages. $49.95 paper.
Reviewed by Issa J. Boullata
"Political Islam" and "Islamism" are used interchangeably in this book to refer to the phenomenon in the contemporary world whereby some present-day Muslims believe that Islam as a faith calls for a specific way to organize society and that they should seek to implement it politically, using violence if needed. This phenomenon has attracted the world's attention, notably since the spectacular 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, with their symbolic effects on international public opinion and the rise of the so-called "war on terror" thereafter. Scholars have studied this phenomenon in many recent works, concentrating on various aspects of it.
Frédéric Volpi of the University of St. Andrews has done a great service in editing this book by selecting the finest scholarship on the subject published in the last ten years or so. The post-publication events of the Arab Spring in 2011 may call for an emphasis on some notions in this book, but the volume remains a most comprehensive overview of political Islam to date and is of great...