Kumar Ramakrishna is the Provost's Chair in National Security Studies and Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has spoken on counterterrorism before local and international audiences, published in numerous prestigious journals, and has been described by Perspectives on Terrorism as "one of Southeast Asia's leading counterterrorism experts" for his research on understanding, preventing, and countering violent extremism in Southeast Asia.

"It has often been claimed that 'Terrorism has no Religion,' Yet major terrorist organizations claim to be acting in the name of true religion and manage to radicalize thousands of young men and women. Kumar Ramakrishna takes a hard look at the ambivalent relationship between religion and violence--an honest and persuasive analysis." -- Alex P. Schmid, Editor-in-Chief, Perspectives on Terrorism

"In a sweeping, rigorous, interdisciplinary volume that draws from extensive writings of, and interviews with, extremists, Kumar Ramakrishna asks us to take the religious extremist mindset seriously, and shows that both violent and non-violent Islamist extremism in Southeast Asia draw from the same theological DNA. Through detailed looks into the lives of extremists in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Ramakrishna shows how they were immersed in an extremist ecosystem that drives their outlook, and makes a major contribution to our understanding of extremism in Southeast Asia." -- Justin V. Hastings, Professor of International Relations and Comparative Politics, University of Sydney

"This book provides a very comprehensive and cogent analysis of religious extremism, with a focus on disruptive challenges by Salafist groups and regional states' responses to them in Southeast Asia. Its diagnoses of the issues by a very seasoned scholar in the field is highly illuminating and penetrating. The book deserves to be read and its findings applied very widely." -- Amin Saikal, Adjunct Professor of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia