Peter L. Bergen

En este informe al Club de Roma, especialistas internacionales analizan situaciones sociales conflictivas en doce países y destacan la valiosa labor de cohesión realizada por las denominadas entidades mediadoras: la escuela, los medios informativos, la Iglesia, los partidos politicos y los movimientos civicos. El informe ofrece una amplia perspectiva sobre una de las preocupaciones crecientes en este final de siglo: la convivencia de culturas diferentes en sociedades pluralistas

The worlds leading expert on Osama bin Laden delivers for the first time the riveting (The New York Times) definitive biography of a man who set the course of American foreign policy for the 21st century and whose ideological heirs we continue to battle today.In The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, Peter Bergan provides the first reevaluation of the man responsible for precipitating Americas long war with al-Qaeda and its decedents, capturing bin Laden in all the dimensions of his life: as a family man, as a zealot, as a battlefield commander, as a terrorist leader, and as a fugitive. The book sheds light on his many contradictions: he was the son of a billionaire yet insisted his family live like paupers. He adored his wives and children, depending on his two wives, both of whom had PhDs, to make critical strategic decisions. Yet, he also brought ruin to his family. He was fanatically religious but willing to kill thousands of civilians in the name of Islam. He inspired deep loyalty, yet, in the end, his bodyguards turned against him. And while he inflicted the most lethal act of mass murder in United States history, he failed to achieve any of his strategic goals.In his final years, the lasting image we have of bin Laden is of an aging man with a graying beard watching old footage of himself, just as another dad flipping through the channels with his remote. In the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound, far from the front lines of his holy war. And yet, despite that unheroic denouement, his ideology lives on. Thanks to exclusive interviews with family members and associates, and documents unearthed only recently, Bergens comprehensive, authoritative, and compelling (H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World) portrait of Osama bin Laden reveals for the first time who he really was and why he continues to inspire a new generation of jihadists.

Posiblemente, Peter Bergen sea el hombre que más sabe de Bin laden y Al Qaeda. Su primera entrevista data de 1997, cuando el terrorista saudí aún no era tan conocido, y desde entonces ha seguido investigando incansablemente. La obra contiene un esclarecedor prologo que nos situa en el contexto del personaje, y mas de cincuenta entrevistas a personas proximas a Bin Laden. Un testimonio excepcional.

The Osama bin Laden I Know is an unprecedented oral history of Osama bin Ladens rise to revered leader of al Qaeda. Peter Bergen takes the reader onto the battlefields of Afghanistan as bin Laden goes from a shy, quiet teen to a leader; he brings you into Osamas intimate family life as he lives under the radar in Sudan, then Afghanistan; he puts you right in the room for al Qaedas very first meeting; and he uses eyewitness accounts to relate what bin Laden said, and thought on 9/11 as he watched the twin towers fall. Derived from Bergens interviews with more than 50 people who know bin Laden personally, from his highschool teacher to an early al Qaeda member who later became a US informant, The Osama bin Laden I Know recounts individual experiences with the man who has declared the US, and its allies, his greatest enemies.

On September 11, 2001, the world in which we live was changed forever. The twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down, one side of the Pentagon burst into flame, and more than six thousand men, women, and children lost their lives in the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil. As shocking as it was, it had been long in the making: The assault was the most sophisticated and horrifying in a series of operations masterminded by Osama bin Laden and his Jihad group -- an organization that CNNs terrorism analyst Peter Bergen calls Holy War, Inc. One of only a handful of Western journalists to have interviewed the worlds most wanted man face to face, Peter Bergen has produced the definitive book on the Jihadist network that operates globally and in secrecy. In the course of four years of investigative reporting, he has interviewed scores of insiders -- from bin Laden associates and family members to Taliban leaders to CIA officials -- and traveled to Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom to learn the truth about bin Ladens al Queda organization and his mission. Immense in scope and unnerving in its findings, Holy War, Inc. reveals: How bin Laden lives, travels, and communicates with his "cells." How his role in the crushing defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan made him a hero to Muslims all over the world -- and equipped him to endure a long and bloody siege. How the CIA ended up funding -- to the tune of three billion dollars -- radical, anti-American Afghan groups allied to bin Laden. How the attacks that foreshadowed the destruction of the World Trade Center -- among them the bombings of the American embassies in Africa and the warship USS Cole in Yemen -- were planned and executed. The dimensions of bin Ladens personal fortune, and why freezing his assets is both futile and nearly impossible. The ideology of bin Ladens number two, the man who has influenced him most profoundly in his holy war -- the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri. What we can expect from Islamist extremists in the future. Above all, Peter Bergen helps us to see bin Ladens organization in a radically new light: as a veritable corporation that has exploited twenty-first-century communications and weapons technologies in the service of a medieval reading of the Koran and holy war. Holy War, Inc. is essential reading for anyone trying to understand tomorrows terrorist threats and the militant Islamist movements that could determine the fate of governments -- and human lives -- the world over. Both author and publisher will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to United Ways September 11th Fund for the relief of victims of the World Trade Center attacks.

Uno de los mayores expertos de la CNN en terrorismo nos ofrece un análisis minucioso del acontecimiento que cambió el mundo, el ataque del 11-S y nos explica con detalle cómo nació y se financió la multinacional terrorista de Osama Bin Laden.

Peter L. Berger is arguably the best-known American sociologist living today. Since the 1960s he has been publishing books on many facets of the American social scene, and several are now considered classics. So it may be hard to believe Professor Bergers description of himself as an "accidental sociologist." But that in fact accurately describes how he stumbled into sociology. In this witty, intellectually stimulating memoir, Berger explains not only how he became a social scientist, but the many adventures that this calling has led to. Rather than writing an autobiography, he focuses on the main intellectual issues that motivated his work and the various people and situations he encountered in the course of his career. Full of memorable vignettes and colorful characters depicted in a lively narrative often laced with humor, Bergers memoir conveys the excitement that a study of social life can bring. The first part of the book describes Bergers initiation into sociology through the New School for Social Research, "a European enclave in the midst of Greenwich Village bohemia." Berger was first a student at the New School and later a young professor amidst a clique of like-minded individuals. There he published The Social Construction of Reality (with colleague Thomas Luckmann), one of his most successful books, followed by The Sacred Canopy on the sociology of religion, also still widely cited. The book covers Bergers experience as a "globe-trekking sociologist" including trips to Mexico, where he studied approaches to Third World poverty; to East Asia, where he discovered the potential of capitalism to improve social conditions; and to South Africa, where he chaired an international study group on the future of post-Apartheid society. Berger then tells about his role as the director of a research center at Boston University. For over two decades he and his colleagues have been tackling such important issues as globalization, the secularization of Europe, and the ongoing dialectic between relativism and fundamentalism in contemporary culture. What comes across throughout is Bergers boundless curiosity with the many ways in which people interact in society. This book offers longtime Berger readers as well as newcomers to sociology proof that the sociologists attempt to explain the world is anything but boring.

Liburu honetan, P.L. Berger-ek soziologian sartzeko gonbite ezin aproposagoa egiten digu. Gonbitea baino ez denez gero, aurkezten dizkigun bide horiek urratu nahi dituenak badu nondik abiatu. Honela, ezin estimagarriagoak dira adibide ugariz (asko gure errealitatera itzultzaileak egokituak) lagunduak datozen Bergerren irakatsiak, besteak beste, eta soziologiaren ardatza izan zitekeen hura: gauzak ez dira diruditenak. Horregatik, lehen atalean Berger-ek esango duen moduan: «Soziologiaren lilura honexetan datza: bere perspektibak ikuspuntu berri batetik ikusarazten digula bizi guztia pasatu duguneko mundua. Hau ere kontzientziaren eraldaketa bat da».

Aquesta introducció a la sociologia és una invitació a un tipus de passió molt peculiar. La sociologia és una forma de consciència característica de la modernitat. És una forma de consciència que imp

Según la teoría de la secularización, la modernidad conlleva necesariamente el declive de la religión. Sin embargo, y para sorpresa de muchos sociólogos de la religión, los datos empíricos han puesto en crisis este indiscutido paradigma cultural.Con algunas excepcionesconcretamente Europa y una gran parte de los intelectuales y de las elites dirigentes, el mundo actual es todo menos secular; incluso podria afirmarse que es tan religioso como siempre, si no mas en algunos lugares. Esta constatacion se ha convertido en un verdadero reto para la sociologia que, en cuanto ciencia, esta llamada a proponer un nuevo paradigma que sea capaz de comprender en su justo sentido el fenomeno del pluralismo.Por una parte, el nuevo paradigma debera tener en cuenta y explicar la coexistencia de diferentes religiones y, por otra, la coexistencia del discurso secular y el religioso; de hecho, ambos pluralismos estan presentes tanto en la mente del individuo como en el espacio social. Solo desde esta base podran superarse determinados prejuicios culturales y comprender mejor la modernidad y la religion.Complementan la obra tres valiosos estudios sobre la religion a cargo de los profesores Nancy Ammerman, Detlef Pollack y Fenggang Yang.Peter L. Berger (Viena, 1929) es uno de los principales referentes de la sociologia modern...

El doble carácter de la sociedad como «facticidad objetiva» y como «complejo de significados subjetivos», que orientó respectivamente las teorías sociológicas de Durkheim y de Weber, dio paso -sobre