‘A groundbreaking and startling book … It should be required reading for those working in the media, policy-making and education—and, indeed, for anybody who wishes to understand our tragically polarized world’—Karen Armstrong

The United States declared war on terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. In The Thistle and the Drone, Akbar Ahmed reveals a tremendously important yet largely unrecognized adverse effect of these campaigns: they actually have exacerbated the already-broken relationship between central governments and the tribal societies on their periphery. Drawing on forty case studies, this groundbreaking analysis demonstrates that it is the conflict between the centre and the periphery and the involvement of the United States that has fuelled the war on terror. No one is immune to this violence — neither school children, nor congregations in their houses of worship. Battered by military or drone strikes one day and suicide bombers the next, people on the periphery say, ‘Every day is like 9/11 for us.’