Tariq Ali looks at modern fundamentalisms

[bibliogramma]

The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali has long been a leading voice in leftist political and social analysis, and this book, written following the events of September 11 2001, is both an introduction to the political and social history of Islam – as multi-faceted and diverse as that of any other faith, including the Christianity that Westerners are most familiar with – and a well developed argument that proposes the driving force in modern history to be the opposition, not of Western and Islamic culture as a whole (as argued by Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilizations but rather of the fundamentalism of Islamism and Western (primarily American) imperialism. Rather than privileging one culture/civilisation over the others, as so many West vs. Islam arguments have done, Ali argues that there are similar fundamentalist forces in both Western and Islamic cultures – but which are not in themselves necessary elements of those cultures, and that it is these forces that are in conflict and must be opposed in both cultures to bring about a change in the current world situation.

An important perspective on the current world situation from a writer who has lived in and studied both of the cultures he so thoughtfully examines in this volume.