Fundamental Fear
Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism

A re-evaluation of political Islam which takes a neo-pragmatist approach. The book breaks with the Arab-centrism of Islamic studies and shows how Islamism can only be understood in the context of its relation with Eurocentrism.

This is a re-evaluation of political Islam. The book breaks with the Arab-centrism of Islamic studies and shows how Islamism can only be understood in the context of its relation with Eurocentrism. Using a neo-pragmatist approach inspired by Richard Porty, and drawing on political and cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall, Agnes Heller and J.F. Lyotard, the book disrupts the conventional accounts of modernity and post-modernity, and presents a radical new reading of Islamism as a response to the "de-centring of the West", decolonization and the passing of the Age of Europe.

Orienting the rise and decline of "Islamic fundamentalism"
dis-orienting Islam
Kemalism and politicization of Islam
Islam, modernity and the West
Islamism and the limits of Eurocentrism.