This insightful, on-the-ground narrative looks at how radical Islam is affecting our society and how our own response is endangering the very democratic values we have hoped to spread around the world—and preserve at home. In Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West, author Abigail R. Esman argues that in large measure, it is actually jihad which has emerged victorious over democracy, not only because of the actions of Muslim terrorists, but because of our own response to extremist Islam in the West. With the best of intentions, Western (European) countries have permitted antidemocratic, ultraconservative Islamic beliefs and traditions to flourish in their societies as they've responded to the influx of Muslim immigrants to their shores, largely as a result of the guest-worker programs which began in the 1960s and 1970s across Europe. But this multicultural approach has only backfired, creating cultural wars in which even the most intolerant and undemocratic of belief systems and values have been permitted, as governments have turned a blind eye to such atrocities as honor killings, anti-Semitism, the spread of literature extolling violence, and calls for the destruction of the democratic state. Esman focuses her narrative on the Netherlands, oft regarded as the most free, stable, and tolerant nation in the West, the paragon of democracy and tolerance. Using Holland as an example, she demonstrates the collapse of democratic values that has occurred in other Western countries—including America—as we struggle against radical Islam. In doing so, she shows how the Western response to the threat of radicalization has at times gone to dangerous extremes, counterbalancing the multiculturalists' indulgence of radical Islam with the creation of restrictive, nearly-totalitarian laws and measures that are as destructive and toxic to our future-to free thought, free speech, and equal rights. Radical State uniquely articulates the dissolution of democratic values that have resulted from the actions of both left- and right-wing approaches to the problem. More importantly, the book strives to resolve the critical question of "what went wrong"—because to set things right again requires understanding how it all broke apart—and we must set it right, or jihad's victory over democracy will be complete, and sooner than we may realize.

In the days after 9/11, Abigail Esman walked the streets of New York haunted by a sense that was eerily familiar: the trauma of violence that hovered over the city. Friends, family, strangers in the street moved, walked, even stood, as she herself had done before as a victim of domestic battery and abuse. Since then, Esman, an award-winning journalist who specializes in writing on terrorism and radicalization, has studied the connections between terror and abuse, and the forces that inspire both forms of violence. The complex web that ties them together is the subject of this groundbreaking new book, Culture of Terrorism, which exposes these interrelations to bring new insights into the terrorist psyche and the cultures that create it. In this new approach to understanding terrorism and violence, Esman presents clear explanations of malignant (pathological) narcissism and its roots in shame-honor cultures - both familial and sociopolitical - through portraits of terrorists and batterers, including Osama bin Laden, Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, O.J Simpson, and others. The insights of psychiatrists, former Muslim radicals, national security experts, and others elaborate authoritatively on the thesis, while Esman’s own experiences with abuse and the aftermath of 9/11 on the streets of New York City further enrich the narrative. Finally, Culture of Terrorism proposes social and policy initiatives aimed at simulating social equality and enriching women’s rights through educational programs globally - all to overcome cultural oppressions and other sociopolitical forces that hinder the possibilities for security and peace. The result is a volume that sheds new light on the roots of violence and terrorism, while arguing for proactive ways in which to protect our Western traditions of justice and of freedom.