This book is a well-timed and important addition to the existing literature on Boko Haram, the increasingly disruptive group operating in Northern Nigeria. With exhaustive attention to detail, Comolli documents the nation's tumultuous history, the origins of Boko Haram, the extent of its radicalism, and the importance of state and international responses in shaping the group's trajectory. Comolli uses a variety of data, including her own fieldwork in Nigeria, to compile a comprehensive reference on the past and present of a movement that, she argues, amounts to an insurgency in the North. Through meticulous analysis, Comolli makes a strong argument that Boko Haram can only be considered in the context of social, political and economic realities in the Nigerian North today.

Comolli uses seven chapters to both detail the current knowledge on Boko Haram and delineate her arguments. The first, introductory, chapter begins with a compelling narrative illustrating the urgency of the Boko Haram crisis. It then discusses the difficulties inherent to the research topic – including an almost total communications blackout from the conflict zone – before ‘embark[ing] on an examination of the historical backcloth against which today's insurgency has emerged and developed’ (p. 9). The second and third chapters accomplish this examination, offering an effective historical treatment of colonial Nigeria and the importance of religion to both group identity and to the development of radical movements in the modern nation – of which, Comolli argues, Boko Haram is merely the most recent example. Chapter 4, ‘What is Boko Haram?’, is one of the more detailed and empirical explorations of the movement available and retains the chronologically grounded perspective seen in previous chapters. Here, readers learn about the movement's ideology, evolving strategies and its members. Security and response issues come to the foreground in Chapters 5 and 6, in which Comolli presents strong evidence that Boko Haram, and its public support, cannot be considered apart from international and national phenomena. Though she devotes Chapter 5 to discussing the role of Nigeria's neighbours and to the global ties between Islamist movements, it is after her Chapter 6 assertion that ‘the government's response to Boko Haram violence has very much shaped the sect's latest development phase’ (p. 109) that Comolli makes some of her strongest contributions to our existing knowledge. Here, she builds a carefully constructed and data-driven argument about the role of the Nigerian government in fuelling the very movement it is attempting to stamp out – and the inability of Western governments to ameliorate the situation.

In the concluding chapter, Comolli's argument crystallises. She writes ‘Unless structural and societal issues are addressed, no state of emergency, military deployment or even foreign intervention will grant lasting stability to Nigeria. Even if the military is successful in crushing the current manifestation of Boko Haram, a new version will most likely present itself, sooner or later, feeding on unresolved grievances and inequality’ (pp. 158–9). Having undertaken the explanation of a movement, she has succeeded in not only meticulously documenting the individual circumstances, but in drawing important theoretical connections that help the reader understand broader social dynamics beyond those circumstances. Scholars of social movements, state security, and those interested in the relationship between state development and violence mitigation will benefit from Comolli's research. She succeeds in making the political and socio-economic linkages she intends with this book and contributes a welcome addition to the burgeoning Boko Haram literature, and a worthwhile entry point for academics, practitioners and general interest readers.