John Calvert is Associate Professor of History at Creighton University, USA. His research focuses on social protest and political resistance movements in the modern Middle East; Egyptian nationalism; and the ideological origins of Al Qaeda. He is co-editor and translator of Sayyid Qutb's A Child from the Village.
'This rich and carefully researched biography sets Qutb for the first time in his Egyptian context, rescuing him from caricature without whitewashing his radicalism. It is no small achievement.'—The Economist; 'In one of the first serious English-language biographices of Qutb, Calvert puts this often misunderstood figure into his historical context, situating Qutb within the turbulent intellectual and political flow of Egyptian and Arab history. . . . The Qutb which emerges from Calvert's even-handed history is far more complex and interesting than the caricature of him which dominates popular understanding. Anyone interested in the evolution of Islamism in the 20th century should read it.' —Atlantic Monthly; 'Given that Qutb is taught in a large (and increasing) number of campuses, and given that he has already been introduced to the general public in bestselling books such as Lawrence Wright's the Looming Tower, the very publication of a Qutb biography is likely to attract considerable interest. … The book not only constitutes what is likely to remain the definitive biography of Sayyid Qutb, it also offers crucial new insights on the post-1954 history of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, another gaping hole in the literature. We are dealing here with a rare book that is likely to become a classic in the field of political Islam. … An outstanding volume.' –– Thomas Hegghammer, Harvard University; 'John Calvert's biography of the man now regarded as the father of radical Islam reveals an ideology forged in the fires of post-colonial Egypt.'—The National (Abu Dhabi)
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