Armour user the best contemporary research to show the reader how events such as the Crusades and the Reconquista of Spain have indelibly shaped the mindset of the West toward Islam and vice versa. He reveals how the modern political and economic system marked by the globalization of capitalism, technology and science has been perceived by the Islamic world as Godless secular assasult on all that is holy. He ends with the Arab-Israeli conflict and the events on 11 September 2001 as the latest and most concrete manifestation of the tragic encounter between the three Peoples of the Book"."