Reviews of The Muslims are Coming!

“Arun Kundnani’s book, vastly more intelligent than the usual ‘war on terror’ verbiage, focuses on the war’s domestic edge in Britain and America. … Arun Kundnani is one of Britain’s best political writers, neither hectoring nor drily academic but compelling and sharply intelligent. The Muslims Are Coming should be widely read, particularly by liberals who consider their own positions unassailable.”

Robin Yassin-Kassab, Guardian

“this is a powerful book. … Again and again this book challenges your assumptions. It is worth reading for its examination of the word ‘extremism’ alone.”

Peter Oborne, Sunday Telegraph

The Muslims are Coming! is a carefully researched and seriously argued account of the Western debate surrounding the war on terror. The author, Arun Kundnani, never tiptoes around issues in the way some writers do… Rather he relies on clarity, and the good sense and good will of his readers… Fascinating historical detours and recaps, such as the US record of destabilising left-leaning regimes in Latin American, never lose sight of the route.”

Miriam Cosic, The Australian

“In The Muslims are Coming!, a critique of counterterrorism policy by Arun Kundnani, the west’s ‘domestic war on terror’ at times resembles a Greene novel populated by a cast of counterterrorism warriors even unlikelier than a hawker of Hoovers in Havana.”

Tanjil Rashid, Financial Times

“This is a book about western hypocrisy and western fear. It is also about the artificiality of race and the hateful idiocy of its spawn, racism. The content is simultaneously provocative and thoughtful.”

Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch

“Kundnani tells the stories of the unheard and unseen. … With so many books written by liberals and neocons on the ‘Muslim peril’, it is a relief to have an intelligent counter-narrative. … a gripping exposition”

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Independent

“Mr Kundnani … has some fair points to make about the counter-productivity of some of [the police’s] efforts. … I came across Mr Kundnani when I was reporting on the Islamic scene in northern British cities, and I found that his analysis of Prevent rang true.”

The Economist

“Kundnani’s book is a fact-rich call for vigilance and clear thinking about the erosion of civil liberties and attitudes.”

New Statesman

“Real resilience would have required compassion and understanding, and Kundnani’s book is vital in showing how far from that ideal the West has strayed in its response to the jihadist threat.”

Eric Randolph, The National

“Through his rigorously researched analysis of preventive counterterrorism measures in the UK and US, Kundnani skilfully and articulately deconstructs the central tenets of these dominant discourses regarding radicalisation and extremism.”

Naaz Rashid, LSE Review of Books

“In this remarkably ambitious work, Arun Kundnani attempts to address two key issues: why Islam is considered the root of terrorism and how Muslim citizenship is becoming conditional on abandoning belief. … Here is a bold and critical voice in the tradition of Eqbal Ahmad and Sivanandan, which needs to be heard and heeded by all – from the Muslim community to policy makers, media and politicians. This ground-breaking work provides all the facts and arguments that campaigners need to rise to the challenge of resisting the ever-intensifying wave of anti-Muslim racism in western societies.”

Saleh Mamon, IRR News

“Kundnani movingly documents the deeply invasive and destructive impact of the War on Terror, forefronting the targeting of Muslim communities residing in the USA and the UK. … The Muslims are Coming depicts the racism of our times providing comprehensive engagement with state policy and ideology whilst noting its ramifications for communities of colour and indeed for society as a whole. For this it is a must read.”

Nisha Kapoor, Ethnic and Racial Studies

“This timely and important new book by Arun Kundnani … serves as one of the most honest and well-researched works on the topic of Islamophobia, and documents in great detail the ways in which the state controls the Muslim population in the name of its war on terror.”

Hsiao-Hung Pai, rs21

“Kundnani frankly and refreshingly moves away from ideological symptoms and toward political causes in tackling extremism.”

Kirkus Review

“Kundnani offers hard alternatives to international security agencies, policing trends, and options for reasonable dissent in his thoughtful, rational plea to curb the War on Terror.”

Publishers Weekly

“‘Why do they hate us?’ Arun Kundnani offers a provocative answer to this question. Drawing on a wealth of information including rare documents and interviews with counterterrorism officials and Muslim activists, Kundnani argues that Islamic radicalization is a myth. … The FBI’s [methods are] a costly method of wrecking lives … That may be the ultimate moral failure of domestic counterterrorism in the twenty first Century and Kundnani is to be applauded for making academic sense of it.”

Mark S. Hamm, Critical Criminology

Reviews of The End of Tolerance

“As Britain battens down the hatches ever further against imaginary ‘floods’ of outsiders, and bien-pensant voices claim in sorrowful tones that ‘multiculturalism has gone too far’, it might be worth remembering how we got here. That is Kundnani’s project … Kundnani icily relates the Kafkaesque absurdities of rejected asylum cases, as well as case studies of biased policing and grossly inflammatory statements by politicians. His sarcasm is finely honed.”

Steven Poole, Guardian, 22 March 2008

“Read Arun Kundani’s just-published, searing book, The End of Tolerance: Racism in the 21st Century (Pluto Press). Racism never passed away. It just became acceptable when globalisation incited an unprecedented movement of the people, and some villainous Muslims blew themselves up in the US and Europe. These two simultaneous occurrences have lethally wounded anti-racist, internationalist politics.”

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Independent, 1 October 2007

“In The End of Tolerance (Pluto), Arun Kundnani provides a detailed and well-researched account of the rise of anti-Muslim racism in Britain. Kundnani’s chilling conclusion is that racism has become integral to British political discourse, with routine demonisation of refugees, immigrants and Muslims.”

New Statesman Books of the Year 2007

“a vitally engaging text devoid of pretentiousness and academicism, it is a book for the bus, the train, the workplace break, as well as for quiet study”

Chris Searle, Morning Star, 26 August 2007

“Arun Kundnani’s book could not be more timely. And perhaps no one in Britain is better placed to write it … Kundnani has a talent to transform a familiar narrative into something memorable and new … Kundnani’s book is the first to have given the racism of our times the attention it deserves.”

David Renton, Red Pepper, October 2007

“a brilliant new book”

Hsiao-Hung Pai, Socialist Review, September 2007

“full of facts and figures, which are balanced by touching anecdotes and stories of repression and state oppression … it is a book that has to be read … by anyone interested in making sense of the world today.”

Tabish Khair, Wasafiri, Spring 2009

“Concisely written, passionately argued and detailed … part of a much-needed critical academia.”

Sofia Hamaz, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, February 2009

“Academics teaching immigration, race and ethnicity will find this book invaluable. It is packed with information, coherently and passionately written, devoid of any postmodern jargon, and, above all else, always politically acute and committed, in the spirit of Zygmunt Bauman’s insistence that good sociology is always engaged sociology.”

Ronit Lentin, Translocations, Winter 2008

“Twelve chapters written in accessible language provide a comprehensive approach to integration versus assimilation, multiculturalism, migration/asylum policy, anti-Muslim racism, state racism and the ‘war on terror’. Kundnani’s method is rare and will be useful to both students and activists.”

Christopher Kyriakides, Ethnic and Racial Studies, November 2008

“The task that Kundnani sets himself is to guide us through the many contributory factors to 21st-century British racism, to show how old arguments are given new articulation, how, in the process, racism becomes more, not less institutionalised … Most significantly, and most damningly, he examines rigorously the contribution made by government.”

Daniel Jewesbury, Variant Review, No. 32, Summer 2008

“Kundnani’s valuable overview provides much grist for recognising the roots of issues of race in the U.S. today.”

Aziz Huq, Colorlines, November–December 2007

“In a world of powerful media spin, blind prejudices and historical amnesia, the book serves as an incisive exposé of an old demon that is still very much lurking in our midst.”

Ala Abbas, Muslim News, 26 October 2007

“In his challenging new book, Arun Kundnani identifies the two major targets of the 21st century’s “new racism”: Muslims and asylum seekers. Both communities have faced demonisation as a result of complex factors largely outside of their control.”

Khadijah Elshayyal, emel magazine, August 2007

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