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Defying foreign government orders and interviewing terrorists face-to-face, a young American tours hostile lands to learn about Middle Eastern youth--and uncovers a subculture that defies every stereotype.

Classrooms were never sufficient for Jared Cohen; he wanted to learn about global affairs by witnessing them firsthand. While studying on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, he took a crash course in Arabic, read voraciously on the history and culture of the Middle East, and in 2004 he embarked on the first of a series of incredible journeys to the Middle East. In an effort to try to understand the spread of radical Islamist violence, he focused his research on Muslim youth. The result is Children of Jihad, a portrait of paradox that probes much deeper than any journalist or pundit ever could.

Written with candor and featuring dozens of eye-opening anecdotes, Cohen's account begins in Lebanon, where he interviews Hezbollah members at, of all places, a McDonald's. In Iran, he defies government threats and sneaks into underground parties, where bootleg liquor, Western music, and the Internet are all easy to access. His risky itinerary also takes him to a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, borderlands in Syria, the insurgency hotbed of Mosul, and other frontline locales. At each turn, he observes a culture at an uncanny crossroads: Bedouin shepherds with satellite dishes to provide Western TV shows, young women wearing garish makeup despite religious mandates, teenagers sending secret text messages and arranging illicit trysts. Gripping and daring, Children of Jihad shows us the future through the eyes of those who are shaping it.

Jason Collins

Over the past twenty-one years, Mr. Collins has been seen on Northwest Stages including The Group Theatre, TAG, Village Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Seattle Children's Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre and The Seattle Repertory Theatre. Favorite roles include Seymour in Little Shop Of Horrors, (Village Theatre) and Matt in The Fantasticks, (ACT). Mr. Collins has had the good fortune and distinct pleasure to be involved with two collaborations with Speeltheatre, Holland at the Seattle Children's Theatre; Nicky Somewhere Else and more recently Glittra's Mission. Mr. Collins has received three prestigious Footlight Awards for his work as Huck Finn in Big River and Valentine LaMar in Babes In Arms, (both with Village Theatre) and Finn in Into The West (for Seattle Children's Theatre). In addition to Live Theatre, Mr. Collins can be heard on the original cast recordings of David Austin's A Christmas Carol and Bucket Of Blood.

Jared Cohen joined the US Department of State after completing Children of Jihad. A Stanford graduate (2004), Oxford graduate (2006), and Rhodes scholar, he has conducted extensive research in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. He has also traveled to Afghanistan, as well as 21 African countries. He has worked in the public and private sectors and appeared in the media, including ABC Radio and the Discovery Channel. He lives in Washington, DC.