A few more comments on Power and the Idealists. There was a small final thought at the end of one of the chapters, holding a lot of meaning but without much explanation, about the connection between some communist rebel movements in the 60s and the Islamic jihad of today. Regis Debray, who had far-reaching access into the lives, ideologies and methods of the leaders of the Cuban revolution, saw that many of the modern leftist rebellions were a kind of suicide mission. His recognition of this began with getting to know Che Guevara, and to see that the way that Che went on his jungle missions were intentionally suicidal, that he knew he would lose but that fight nevertheless required his death. So what was really new about another rebel movement obsessed with death? - he saw jihadis as fitting squarely in the same modern paradigm, and not as new a phenomenon as many have said.