Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill » (Audio CD)

Jessica Stern lectures on terrorism at Harvard University and is a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. She holds a doctorate in public policy from Harvard. She served as a staff member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. A 2009-2010 Guggenheim Fellow, she was selected by Time magazine in 2001 as one of seven thinkers whose innovative ideas "will change the world." Stern is the author of the New York Times Notable Book Terror in the Name of God and The Ultimate Terrorists. She lives with her husband and son in Massachusetts.

For five years, Jessica Stern interviewed extremist members of three religions around the world: Christians, Jews, and Muslims. She traveled extensively - to refugee camps in Lebanon, to religious schools in Pakistan, to prisons in Amman, Ashqelon, and Pensacola - and discovered that the Islamic jihadi in the mountains of Pakistan and the Christian fundamentalist bomber in Oklahoma have much in common.

Based on her vast research, Stern lucidly explains how terrorist organizations are formed by opportunistic leaders who - using religion as both motivation and justification - recruit the disenfranchised. She depicts how moral fervor is transformed into sophisticated organizations that strive for money, power, or attention and suggests how terrorism might most effectively be countered.

The Washington Post

Stern is the think-tank world's Bond girl, a rare female expert on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction; she was the inspiration for the Nicole Kidman character in "The Peacemaker." Her previous book, The Ultimate Terrorists, dissected the probability that terrorists would launch a nuclear or chemical attack, complete with psychological studies and policy suggestions. This latest one is the follow-up field trip, low on theory, high on anecdote: The professor comes face to face with her subjects. — Hanna Rosin