Across the board, from his narrative to his footnotes to his bibliography to his index, this book is as good as it gets. This is a world-class contribution to our understanding in three areas: 1) what can be known about terrorism and militant Islam from open sources of information (but is being largely ignored by the so-called professional intelligence agencies that are obsessing on secret sources and methods; 2) what governments in Southeast Asia are and are not doing about it (in many cases, abusing American naiveté or being put off by American arrogance; and 3) where militant Islam is going in this area–be afraid, be very afraid.
If all academics were this good, we would not need spies. This book and this author represent the very best scholarship that one could ask for. The author is the Program Director for East Asian Studies and associate professor of international politics at Simmons College. Goggling him yields a fine selection of interviews and Congressional testimony.
