Europe's Angry Muslims

There is no dearth of literature looking at ‘what went wrong’ vis-à-vis terrorism and the frustrations within Muslim communities in Europe. So what does this book add to the genre? Robert Leiken is affiliated to the Centre for the National Interest, an influential Washington think-tank, previously known as the Nixon Centre. He has also worked at numerous universities, community organising positions in Mexico and Boston, and advised the US government on policies towards parts of Latin America. Leiken created controversy (not for the first time in his career) when he wrote an article in Foreign Affairs (2007) on the ‘Moderate Muslim Brotherhood’, arguing that al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are very different movements, often bitter enemies and that there could be scope for engagement with moderate branches of the Brotherhood. Leiken brings an interestingly broad perspective to the subject and takes time to get to grips with some of the detailed and nuanced, often conflicting, aspects of the topic. Written in fourteen Chapters, the book focuses mainly on Muslims in the UK, France and Germany (in order of the amount of material discussed) and is based on fieldwork conducted in all three countries. The scope of the book is much wider than terrorism. In fact much of the book looks at the settlement and growth of Muslim communities in the countries named and also links this in with wider discussions around the nature of those societies and the place and treatment of minorities within them, including debates around assimilation, integration and multiculturalism. The book focuses primarily on the second generation and their search for a home within these countries amidst the complex changes taking place around them. T