Book Review: Kumar Ramakrishna, Jemaah Islamiyah, ISIS and Beyond: Tracking the Evolving Challenge of Violent Extremism in Southeast Asia (2001 -2025)

This well-written short book is filled with very insightful observations by a veteran academic expert about the evolution of the terrorist threat from around 2001 to the mid-2020s. The author serves as Professor of National Security Studies (among other positions) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), in Singapore, and has written numerous books on terrorism in Southeast Asia. While this book primarily focuses on the characteristics of violent extremism in Southeast Asia by groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda, and most recently by ISIS (including the lone actors who follow them), one of the book’s important contributions is the author’s explanation of how the drivers of radicalisation into violent extremism have evolved globally over the years.