A “just browsing” reader would be well-served by reading the
very short, 3-page Preface to get a better sense of what the whole book
is about. Indeed, the scope of the book is laid out in the first one and a half
pages! That same browser could then usefully skip to the back of the book and
read the short, 4-page Epilogue entitled “Who Won?” to better understand
the exaggerated impact global jihad has had on America, especially since 9/11. America
was so devastated by 9/11—and understandably so—that it adopted policies at
home and abroad that represented both a vast exaggeration of the nature of the
threat, and an essential misunderstanding of the dynamics of global jihad. Hopefully,
this book will act as a corrective to both these shortcomings.
But the whole book is accessibly written and under 200 pages
of text, so the browser would be well-served to read the whole book!
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
A close-up
A “just browsing” reader would be well-served by reading the very short, 3-page Preface to get a better sense of what the whole book is about. Indeed, the scope of the book is laid out in the first one and a half pages! That same browser could then usefully skip to the back of the book and read the short, 4-page Epilogue entitled “Who Won?” to better understand the exaggerated impact global jihad has had on America, especially since 9/11. America was so devastated by 9/11—and understandably so—that it adopted policies at home and abroad that represented both a vast exaggeration of the nature of the threat, and an essential misunderstanding of the dynamics of global jihad. Hopefully, this book will act as a corrective to both these shortcomings.
But the whole book is accessibly written and under 200 pages of text, so the browser would be well-served to read the whole book!