Why do suicide bombers strap on explosives, walk into a crowded area, and annihilate themselves and all around? Anthropologist Scott Atran has spent years trying to find out. He's a good writer, too. He tells us about his childhood living under the threat of nuclear war; of the assassination of JFK, of the fact that one of his neighbours was the only man to fly in both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions. He goes around the world, talking to terrorists. It's gripping, humane, brilliantly insightful. Why do they do it? Not out of hatred, but because of intense, twisted groupthink. They do it for their mates.
