Art Not Just Geopolitics Is Key to Understanding ISIS
Battle Lines Want to Understand the Jihadis? Read Their Poetry  The New Yorker, Art is the truest reflection of a society, what it dreams of, what it fears, and what it aspires to become. Analysts study the ideology, the politics, and the economics of jihad, but we ignore the poetry as if it's a diversion rather than a valuable map of an inner landscape that remains unexplored. This New Yorker article by Robyn Creswell and Bernard Haykel takes a closer look. It's literary analysis as social profiling, and it's fascinating. My pick of the week.