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pp. 320, ‘Through his own personal journey from a college student fighting alongside Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq in 1991 to a seasoned reporter covering conflicts from the Sahara to the Himalayas, British journalist Burke explores the complexities of the region and its culture, politics, and religion, which are often boiled down to anti-West terrorism and radicalism. Deriding the notion of Islamic culture as monolithic, Burke draws on interviews with government ministers, mujahideen, and refugees fleeing the violence to offer a portrait of the place of Islam in Middle Eastern politics and conflicts. Burke examines how Islam is used by some to radicalize and mobilize militants, and the propaganda fomented by the West and Islamic nations, including how the U.S. switched from denying Sadam Hussein’s human-rights violations to suddenly discovering evidence and using it as justification for going to war against Iraq. As a journalist, he concedes his own culpability in the misunderstandings about the “Islamic world” as he details the evolving struggle to define and explain what is happening between the West and the Middle East.” paperback edition