An expert in violent extremism delivers a "serious and provocative... odyssey into the hearts and minds of religious terrorists" from Pakistan to Oklahoma ( The New York Times Book Review).
A New York Times Notable Book
For four years, Jessica Stern interviewed extremist members of three religions around the world: Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Traveling extensively-to refugee camps in Lebanon, to religious schools in Pakistan, to prisons in Amman, Asqelon, and Pensacola-she 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, and attention.
Jessica Stern's extensive interaction with the faces behind the terror provide unprecedented insight into acts of inexplicable horror, and enable her to suggest how terrorism can most effectively be countered.
"[A] sophisticated examination of religiously motivated terrorism"- The New Yorker

Jessica Stern is a research professor at Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies and a Fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard's School of Public Health. She served on the Clinton administration's National Security Council Staff. She is the author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror; Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year); and The Ultimate Terrorists.