I'd rather give this book 2.5 stars, but I don't have that option. I started off with three, but as I started to write out my criticism, I realized that three stars would be too generous.

While I appreciate what the author is trying to do with this book, this may be a case of trying to cover too much ground in a condensed work. The author provides an introduction to terrorist groups, various analytic methods, and touches on gangs and religiously-motivated extremism. Unfortunately, the broad brush approach isn't properly focuses. The author makes generalizations that can be misleading while skipping over more important information.

I've been searching for other honest reviews of this book and find it hard to believe that everyone truly rates this as five stars. Perhaps I'm not reading this book correctly, but there were many times where it seems the author contradicts himself within the same paragraph. I noticed that there is not an editor listed for this book and I believe that this may in fact be the main issue I have with the book... someone should be pushing to reorganize all of the information laid out and ask the author to clarify his points.