Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East

Over the last two decades, Islamic revivalism in the Muslim world has been the subject of heated debates among academicians and policy makers. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Islam has often been perceived as a world-wide menace and the major threat to the West. Some scholars have directed attention to a large scale confrontation between Islam and the West that they call a "clash of civilization." Fred Halliday sets out to reject such interpretations. He provides an alternative, critical but cautious reassessment.Halliday asserts that the Islamic threat to the West is propagated from two contradictory sides--from the West that seeks to turn the Muslim world into another enemy, and from the camp of those within the Islamic countries who advocate contadiction with the Western world in order to remain in power. Halliday contends that the idea of a prennial conflict with West is not just an invention of European or American demagogues. "As communism collapsed, and with it the range of parties and movements in the Third World that associated with it, some in the Islamic world appeared to confirm Western prejudices by affirming that they would indeed replace Bolshevism as the major challenge to the West, and would do so more effectively because their challenge was inspired by God.""Isam and the Myth of Confrontation" is a scholarly contribution and extremely insightful book that sheds new light on a very complex issues involving the Middle East. General readers as well as experts on the Midlle East are certain to be enlightened by this excellent book.