Synopsis The route to any coherent understanding of our time runs through the issues addressed in this collection of essays: the political meaning of Islam, the relation of the West of the Islamic world, the new form of imperialism signaled first by the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and now by the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the intractable conflict over Palestine. This volume brings together Gilbert Achcar’s major writings on these issues over the past decades. Achcar;s introductory essay, reflecting on the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, integrates these analyses in a major new account of the strategy of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East and its prospects. Achcar’s analyses are supple and inventive, and consistently informed by reflection on rival traditions of political thought and a deep knowledge of the region.