The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism

In this authoritative, accessible study, historian Suzanne Schneider examines the politics and ideology of the Islamic State and finds that contemporary jihad is a microcosm of global political trends, one that can help us understand the slide toward authoritarianism and nihilist violence worldwide. Most western commentators have assumed the modern jihad is antithetical to western liberalism; Schneider argues the opposite. The jihadist violence of the Islamic State, she finds, has much in common with political life in Europe and the United States, from the spectacular violence of mass shootings to authoritarian populism and the rise of xenophobic nationalism. The Islamic State, in other words, is a dark reflection of western liberalism, rather than its antithesis. Through chapters surveying modern jihadist ideas of the state, violence, identity, and political community, Schneider argues that modern jihad and western capitalism are two versions of a politics of failure: the failure to imagine a better life here on earth.

Based on extensive research into a wide range of sources, from Islamic jurisprudence to popular recruitment videos, contemporary apocalyptic literature and the Islamic State’s Arabic-language publications, and written with the sensibility of a political theorist, Schneider explores modern jihad as a way to show us a vision of a dark future–one we might still swerve to avoid.