Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern

(Paperback, Main - revised edition)

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Americans view the September 11th attacks as the act of an anachronistic and dangerous sect, one that championed medieval and outmoded ideals.


But as John Gray demonstrates, the ideology of Al Qaeda is both Western and modern. Itself a byproduct of globalization's transnational capital flows and open borders, Al Qaeda's utopian zeal to remake the world descends from the same Enlightenment creed that informed both the disastrous Soviet experiment and the neo-liberal dream of a global free market.


In this compact and wide-ranging tour de force, John Gray, the acclaimed author of False Dawn and Two Faces of Liberalism, narrates the sudden disintegration of this creed, our ruling myth, the belief that societies everywhere will become more modern, more alike, and more prosperous through the spread of Enlightenment values our values.


Touching on the philosophical roots of Al Qaeda, the brief history of the global free market, the collapse of states and the rise of unconventional warfare, Gray radically revises the conventional wisdom of the post-September 11 era.

Author Bio

John Gray is a professor of European thought at the London School of Economics, and the author of False Dawn and Two Faces of Liberalism. He lives in London.