Devil's Long Tail

'In this well-reasoned book, the authors argue that censorship won't quash extremism - only free speech will.' -- Publishers Weekly
'An engaging and original exploration of the analytically complex - and politically fraught - relationships between technology, religion and the politics of security. - Stevens and O'Hara make a compelling, accessible and well-structured case for why violent extremism - at least those forms in which religion plays a constitutive role - is best countered by leaving it to adapt or survive in the global "marketplace" of religious ideas. Their book brings maturity and insight to a field in which political expediency has often trumped coherent and reasoned discussion and hampered or even degraded societal security itself.' -- Tim Stevens, Department of War Studies, King's College London
'Stevens and O'Hara adopt a refreshingly original and multidisciplinary market-based approach to analysing the complex intersection between religion, extremism, and the internet to challenge the received wisdom on advisable policy responses. Referencing everyone from Adam Smith to Jurgen Habermas, and Sherry Turkle to Joseph Conrad, Nicholas Negroponte, and Eli Pariser, The Devil's Long Tail is essential reading.' -- Maura Conway, Senior Lecturer in International Security, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University
'Stevens and O'Hara explore the metaphor of the "marketplace of ideas" - religious beliefs as e-commerce product. They interrogate the relationship between religious radicalism and violent extremism, and question whether the internet plays a role in driving the two together. Setting out to bridge the gap between the intuitive and the evidenced, their contribution to the heated discourse around terror is both thought-provoking and timely.' -- Neville Bolt, King's College London, author of The Violent Image: Insurgent Propaganda and the New Revolutionaries