From secular-minded autocrats like Saddam Hussein to religious fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden, powerful voices in the Islamic world have been united by a fierce hatred of the West.

If we want to know why they think the way they do, we have to understand the history of Islam and its continuous interactions with the West.

This masterly collection of essays by a leading expert on Islam and the Middle East ranges over the whole sweep of Islamic history and Western attempts to comprehend it.