Radical Eye for the Infidel Guy: Inside the Strange World of Militant Islam

For those who prefer their global threat analysis laugh-free, this treatise on the dangers of Islam-punctuated with lists like ""The Crusades vs. the Jihad: Battle of the Holy Wars""-might be worth skipping. Ryan's cultural study attacks the notion that Islam is ""a religion of peace and tolerance,"" making a bold case outlining Islam's direct threat to Western culture and democracy. Ryan characterizes the Muslim world as ""ruled by hatred, casual murder, medieval-style torture, and a nearly pathological misogyny,"" and his study of it ""heartbreaking, infuriating, tragic and almost comical in its extremism and contradictions""; as such, his tone of beleagured outrage works perfectly. Though Ryan's pointedly inflammatory rhetoric can grate, he covers plenty of ground, including the honor killing of Muslim women by their own fathers and brothers, state-sanctioned execution for those who convert from Islam and, of course, suicide bombing. Ryan can undermine his own arguments with simplistic answers to complicated questions (Did 9/11 happen ""because we let our women wear shorts, go to school, drive a car, and go to work? I think it was a large part of it""), but his fearless look at the troubling aspects of Islam is informative and provocative.