‘ISIS and the Pornography of Violence’ is a collection of iconoclastic essays on ISIS, spanning the four-year period from its ascendancy in late 2014 to its demise in early 2018. From a trenchant critique of the infantilisation of jihadists to a probing examination of the parallels between gonzo porn and ISIS beheading videos, the pieces collected in this volume challenge conventional ways of thinking about ISIS and the roots of its appeal. Simon Cottee’s core argument is that Western ISIS recruits, far from being brainwashed or ‘vulnerable’ dupes, actively responded to the group’s promise of redemptive violence and self-sacrifice to a total cause.

Radicalization, Cottee argues, is a murky and complex process that cannot be reduced to any single explanatory scheme or thesis. He also documents the emergence of a new kind of ‘liquid jihad’ in the West, where involvement in jihadism reflects more a process of drift than any full ideological conversion, and where commitment, often fragile, is sustained by social networks.