Us Versus Them

Abstract

The intersection of Islamophobia and US foreign policy has attracted considerable scholarly attention since 9/11. Landmark books exploring this connection include Mahmood Mamdani’s Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terrorism, and Deepa Kumar’s Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Douglas Little’s Us Versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat is not as ambitious as these studies. It does not forge new theoretical ground in our understanding of how Islamophobia is instrumentalized to bolster US foreign policy objectives. But this is not necessarily a criticism. Little’s purpose is more modest, though his project no less difficult. He seeks to provide a lively, accessible introduction to US engagement with Muslim extremists since the end of the Cold War and the problematic paradigms that have shaped this policy. In this task, he succeeds admirably ...