In this wide-ranging book Ali challenges assumptions on both sides, arguing that Islamic civilization has an important role in Western modernity, and that what we have experienced with the rise of fundamentalism is the return of history in an horrific form.

About the Author

Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written over a dozen books on world history and politics, five novels and scripts for both stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.

Reviews

This is a work of truly monumental vacuity. On September 11, declares Ali (editor, New Left Review), the "subjects of the Empire had struck back." He depicts the United States as a nation bent on a "fundamentalist" foreign policy, impelled purely by economic self-interest, since its inception. The conflict now raging, then, has little to do with terrorism or with individual terrorist leaders. Rather, it is yet another in a series of struggles between the dispossessed and their imperial masters hence a clash of Islamic and American fundamentalisms. See? Well, no. The book has no bibliography and only a handful of footnotes, largely from secondary sources. Some undocumented howlers: FDR maneuvered Japan into war; the "massacre of civilian populations was always an integral part of US warmaking strategy" in Vietnam; and Harvard economists persuaded Boris Yeltsin, "an amoral and debauched clown," to adopt free-market policies that gave Russians "the most harrowing ordeal" of the postwar era presumably including the Stalin years. In short, this isn't a serious work. Libraries owning works by Edward Said (Orientalism) and Bernard Lewis (What Went Wrong?) can skip. Not recommended. James R. Holmes, Fletcher Sch. of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts Univ., Medford, MA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

"In this timely and important book, Tariq Ali puts the events of September 11 into sweeping historical perspective. As we have come to expect from him, he is lucid, eloquent, literary, and painfully honest, as he dissects both Islamic and Western fundamentalism." Howard Zinn "The book is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the nightmare of history from which so many people are struggling to awake, and deserves serious engagement and consideration. Ali broadens our horizons, geographically, historically, intellectually and politically. His mode of history telling is lyrical and engaging, humane and passionate." -- Anthony Arnove, The Nation "Ali's style is vigorous, his narrative compelling, showing that the short-term, self-interested and oil-greedy policies of the British and Americans in such countries as Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran must make our much-vaunted ideals of democracy and equity seem like a bad joke." -- Karen Armstrong, The Times "It will not open doors at the White House because it makes for uncomfortable reading ... a wide-ranging and powerfully argued critique, that gives pause for thought." - Financial Times "[Ali] finds little to distinguish between the organised violence of the United States and that of those who oppose it..." - Sydney Morning Herald "Urbane, highly intelligent and vividly written. One hopes this fine study will earn no fatwa." -- Richard Sennett, Times Literary Supplement