A new volume on the Islamic State titled “The Terror Caliphate. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Islamic State” (the title is in German, contributions are in both English and German) just appeared, edited by Janusz Biene from the project on transnational escalation mechanisms of violent dissidence and Martin Schmetz of the Security Politics Blog.

Undoubtedly, the jihadist organization that calls itself “Islamic State” is currently the avant-garde of the global jihadist movement. Due to its claim to have re-build a caliphate, its battle with Al Qaeda and its gruesome violence committed against civilians as well as combatants alike, it dominates public, political and academic discourses for months now. But what do we really know about IS aka Daesh? In the face of increasing numbers of foreign fighters striving to fight for IS in Syria and Iraq, the radicalization of European youths as well as the emergence of anti-muslim movements in several European countries, it seems we lack knowledge of and strategies to tackle the threat jihadism in general and IS in particular.

The volume aims at illuminating blind spots of and qualifying arguments in the discourses on IS. As a paperback it can be purchased for 9,99€. Moreover, it can be downloaded for free on the website of Sicherheitspolitik-Blog.de, an academic weblog based at Goethe University Frankfurt: http://www.sicherheitspolitik-blog.de/buecher/.