Children of Jihad
A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East
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3.3 • 10 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Defying foreign government orders and interviewing terrorists face to face, a young American tours hostile lands to learn about Middle Eastern youth, and uncovers a subculture that defies every stereotype.
In 2004, Jared Cohen embarked on the first of a series of incredible journeys to the Middle East in an effort to understand the spread of radical Islamist violence among Muslim youth. The result is Children of Jihad, a portrait of paradox that probes much deeper than any journalist or pundit ever could.
Chosen as one of Kirkus Review's Best Books of 2007, Cohen's account begins in Lebanon, where he interviews Hezbollah members at, of all places, a McDonald's. In Iran, he defies government threats and sneaks into underground parties, where bootleg liquor, Western music, and the Internet are all easy to access. His risky itinerary also takes him to a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, borderlands in Syria, the insurgency hotbed of Mosul, and other front-line locales. At each turn, he observes a culture at an uncanny crossroads. Gripping and daring, Children of Jihad shows us the future through the eyes of those who are shaping it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rather than globetrotting for pleasure like many post-collegiate backpackers, Cohen charms his way through Middle Eastern countries typically thought of as unfriendly to the West. This type of travel is not without its problems: he suffers intimidation, unauthorized searches and other threats over the course of his two years spent among the twentysomethings of Lebanon, Syria and Iran. While gamboling across the region, Cohen drops in on Palestinian refugee camps, chats up Hezbollah members at a McDonalds, talks nuclear power with Iranians over illegal moonshine and meets "Iraqis who like us" in Iraqi Kurdistan. It is often repeated that the colorful and gifted youth immortalized in this book are surprisingly similar to their class of American counterparts, valuing education, dreaming of the future, and tooling with emerging technologies to broaden their sense of the world. Cohen's accounts are sharp and his intentions admirable.
