Graham Fuller

Monday, October 18 at 12 Noon (Baypoint Ballroom)

Topic: A World Without Islam

Graham E. Fuller is currently Adjunct Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC. He has a BA and MA from Harvard in Russian and Middle East studies. He worked 20 years as a CIA operations officer, seventeen of  them overseas in Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan and China.  He later became Vice-Chair of the National Intelligence Council at CIA, with overall responsibility for national level strategic forecasting.

After leaving government service Mr. Fuller was a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation for 12 years where, among many publications, he wrote on political Islam in various countries, and on the geopolitics of the Muslim world. He speaks several Middle Eastern languages as well as Russian and Chinese. He has written many books and articles on Middle Eastern and South Asian geopolitics, including The Center of the Universe: the Geopolitics of  Iran;  The Geopolitics of Islam and the West; Turkey Faces East: Turkey’s New Geopolitics from the Balkans to Central Asia; The Arab Shi’a; and The Future of Political Islam, 2003. His 2008 book is The New Turkish Republic: Turkey’s Pivotal Role in the Middle East. His newest work, A World Without Islam, was published by Little Brown in August 2010.

“In the West the words Islamic fundamentalism conjure up images of bearded men with turbans and women covered in black shrouds. And some Islamist movements do indeed contain reactionary and violent elements. But we should not let stereotypes blind us to the fact that there are also powerful modernising forces at work within these movements. Political Islam is about change. In this sense, modern, Islamist movements may be the main vehicle for bringing about change in the Muslim world and the break-up of the old “dinosaur” regimes. What will come in their place is less clear.”
– From “Islam: A Force for Change” by Graham E. Fuller [Le Monde Diplomatique]

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