Against Us

June 30, 2008
A foreign correspondent for ABC News, Sciutto examines and explains the increasingly negative attitudes toward the United States among citizens of Muslim and Arab countries in this deeply insightful book. Structured around interviews conducted in the Middle East and the U.K., the book offers ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that anti-American sentiment—once the province of fringe groups—has gone mainstream, becoming in effect, a form of Middle Eastern nationalism, uniting moderates and radicals, Muslims and Christians for whom “freedom implies the freedom from American interference.” Sciutto weaves together interviews with historical background, poll data and personal experience in this consistently informative and captivating account. In the strongest interviews, including one with a young, reform-minded Iranian activist and another with an Iraqi doctor, the book sets intense, sometimes horrifying experiences against a complicated and changing political backdrop. The author makes a few amorphous foreign policy recommendations on the basis of his research, but the book is less interesting for what it reveals about American policy than for its empathetic and candid depiction of its subjects and their lives.

August 1, 2008
Sciutto long shared with other Americans the comforting belief that hatred of the U.S. festered only within a radical fringe of Islam. But after traveling through the Muslim world, interviewing a wide range of individual Muslims, Sciutto has concluded that antipathy toward his country now runs deep even among mainstream and moderate Muslims. Although not all of the interviewees speak with the same voice, those Sciutto regards as Americas natural allies (idealistic students and pro-democracy activists) bristle with anti-U.S. feelings all too similar to those of al-Qaedas jihadists. As Sciutto probes for the sources of this anger, he unearths irrational conspiracy theories (the CIA gets blamed even for earthquakes) seamlessly fused to entirely comprehensible logic (the U.S. hurts ordinary Arabs by propping up authoritarian regimes in the Middle East). Although he paints a sobering picture, Sciutto offers hope for Americans seeking amicable relationships with Muslims. U.S. officials, he suggests, could take the first steps by simply acknowledgingand apologizing forpast blunders. Much-needed light on dark geopolitical realities.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)