Christopher Hitchens

Simon Cottee

Thomas Cushman

By any standard, the United States is the most violent nation in the industrialized world. To find comparable levels of interpersonal violence, one must look to nations in the midst of civil war. Most observers of modern American violence do not consider the historical roots of current levels of violence, preferring to criticize American liberalism, permissive child-rearing practices, and excessive greed and individualism as the sources of the problem. This collection of original essays examines the role of violence in America's past, exploring its history and development, from slave patrols in the Colonial South to gun ownership in the twentieth century. Contributors examine both individual acts, such as domestic violence, murder, dueling, frontier vigilantism, and rape, and group and state-led acts such as lynchings, slave uprisings, rifle clubs, legal sanctions of heterosexual aggression, and invasive medical experiments on women's bodies. Contributors include Jeff Adler, Bruce Baird, Robert Dykstra, Lee Chambers-Schiller, Philip J. Cook, Laura Edwards, Uche Egemonye, Nicole Etcheson, Evan Haefeli, Sally Hadden, Paula Hinton, Arthur L. Kellermann, Laura McCall, Kate Nickerson, Mary Odem, Craig Pascoe, John C. Pettegrew, Junius P. Rodriguez, and Andrea Tone, Christopher Waldrep.

Terror, Iraq, and the Left

Christopher Hitchens and His Critics

The Apostates is the first major study of apostasy from Islam in the western secular context. Drawing on life-history interviews with ex-Muslims from the UK and Canada, Simon Cottee explores how and with what consequences Muslims leave Islam and become irreligious. Apostasy in Islam is a deeply controversial issue and features prominently in current debates over the expansion of Islam in the West and what this means. Yet it remains poorly understood, in large part because it has become so politicized-with protagonists on either side of the debate selectively invoking Islamic theology to make claims about the 'true' face of Islam. The Apostates charts a different course by examining the social situation and experiences of ex-Muslims. Cottee suggests that Islamic apostasy in the West is best understood not as a legal or political problem, but as a moral issue within Muslim families and communities. Outside of Muslim-majority societies, ex-Muslims are not living in fear for their lives. But they face and must manage the stigma attached to leaving the faith from among their own families and the wider Muslim community.

When Muslims Leave Islam

The Apostates

'ISIS and the Pornography of Violence' is a collection of iconoclastic essays on ISIS, spanning the four-year period from its ascendancy in late 2014 to its demise in early 2018. From a trenchant critique of the infantilization of jihadists to a probing examination of the parallels between gonzo porn and ISIS beheading videos, the pieces collected in this volume challenge conventional ways of thinking about ISIS and the roots of its appeal. Simon Cottee’s core argument is that Western ISIS recruits, far from being brainwashed or “vulnerable” dupes, actively responded to the group’s promise of redemptive violence and self-sacrifice to a total cause.

ISIS and the Pornography of Violence

Watching Murder shines a light onto the dark world of jihadi murder videos and the people who watch and share them on the internet. Images and videos of murder, torture and other cruelties are everywhere on the internet. Why do some people seek out and watch this material, how are they affected by it and do they have a right to watch any of it in the first place? In this ground-breaking book, terrorism scholar Simon Cottee visits the murky fringes of the internet in search of answers. Focusing on ISIS, he shows how the group transformed the urban myth of the snuff movie into a grim reality watched by tens of thousands of people across the globe. On shock-sites, he finds a contingent of ISIS fans who, while hating the group, love to watch its most monstrous depredations in high definition. He interviews his fellow extremism researchers and asks them about all the dark things they have seen online and how this has affected their mental health. He speaks with the "cleaners" whose job is to report and remove violent jihadi propaganda from the internet. And he surveys thousands of young adults to find out what they think of ISIS and its notorious beheading videos. Cottee exposes the hysteria around online radicalization, and shows how our engagement with violent online spectacles is much more complex and multifaceted than many would have us believe. Watching Murder will appeal to anyone with an interest in violence, media, terrorism and ISIS. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of terrorism studies, political science, culture and communication.

ISIS, Death Videos and Radicalization

Watching Murder

Christopher Hitchens—political journalist, cultural critic, public intellectual and self-described contrarian—is one of the most controversial and prolific writers of his generation. His most recent book, God Is Not Great, was on the New York Times bestseller list in 2007 for months. Like his hero, George Orwell, Hitchens is a tireless opponent of all forms of cruelty, ideological dogma, religious superstition and intellectual obfuscation. Once a socialist, he now refers to himself as an unaffiliated radical. As a thinker, Hitchens is perhaps best viewed as post-ideological, in that his intellectual sources and solidarities are strikingly various (he is an admirer of both Leon Trotsky and Kingsley Amis) and cannot be located easily at any one point on the ideological spectrum. Since leaving Britain for the United States in 1981, Hitchens's thinking has moved in what some see as contradictory directions, but he remains an unapologetic and passionate defender of the Enlightenment values of secularism, democracy, free expression, and scientific inquiry. The global turmoil of the recent past has provoked intense dispute and division among intellectuals, academics, and other commentators. Hitchens's writing during this time, particularly after 9/11, is an essential reference point for understanding the genesis and meaning of that turmoil—and the challenges that accompany it. This volume brings together Hitchens's most incisive reflections on the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and the state of the contemporary Left. It also includes a selection of critical commentaries on his work from his former leftist comrades, a set of exchanges between Hitchens and various left-leaning interlocutors (such as Studs Terkel, Norman Finkelstein, and Michael Kazin), and an introductory essay by the editors on the nature and significance of Hitchens's contribution to the world of ideas and public debate. In response, Hitchens provides an original afterword, written for this collection. Whatever readers might think about Hitchens, he remains an intellectual force to be reckoned with. And there is no better place to encounter his current thinking than in this provocative volume.

Simon Cottee

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