A quiet period during the holidays as I try to catch up some longer writing projects I have due. In the meantime, I have a new book review in my institutional home’s journal, the RUSI Journal, this one of Jeremy Shapiro’s interesting new book The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations which focuses on bureaucracy in terrorist networks. It comes just as AP publishes a whole series of documents online found in Mali detailing al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s internal corporate structure – very much illustrating many of Shapiro’s points. The review can be found here.

I also realize I never published links to other book reviews I have done for the RUSI Journal. Earlier in the year, I did one about Stig Jarle Hansen’s book Al Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005-2012. That review can be found here. A very detailed book, which seems to be first of two he did for Hurst.

And finally, I did a review essay of China going out looking at China’s Silent Army: The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and Workers who are remaking the world in Beijing’s image and The Chinese Question in Central Asia: Domestic Order, Social Change, and the Chinese Factor. Two very different co-authored books – one more journalistic than the other (China’s Silent Army), but both interesting in different ways. The review essay can be found here.

Given they are all paywalled, I cannot simply post them here, but if you get in touch I can try to help.