In this look at the rise of political Islam, the political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani [brings his expertise and insight to bear on a question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen?] Mamdani dispels the idea of “good” (secular, westernized) and “bad” (pre-modern, fanatical) Muslims, pointing out that these judgments refer to political rather than cultural or religious identities. The book argues that political (fanatical) Islam emerged as the result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America's embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. Mamdani says that the era of proxy wars has come to an end with the invasion of Iraq. And there, as in Vietnam, America will need to recognize that it is not fighting terrorism but nationalism, a battle that cannot be won by occupation.