Fred A. Reed's fifth book on the Middle East and  the wars of the Ottoman succession" traces the roots of Islamic fundamentalism, as currently enacted by Hezbollah and other Islamic fundamentalist organizations, to the iconoclasts of sixth- and seventh-century Damascus.The emergence of Iconoclasm, as sudden and overwhelming as it was catalytic, was at once the product of the forces released by the new social, political and religious teachings of the Prophet, and of their encounter with the Christian world at its far periphery.They are forces that are quite alive and at large in today's world, as the Western crusade against this latest prophetic dispensation of the Abrahamic tradition assumes a form both aggressive and invasive.Shattered Images covers all of the major Islamic faiths in its search for the origins of contemporary fundamentalist movements: the Shi'a, Sunni, Ismaili (and their connection with the Assassins) and many of the minor tributaries of Islam, including the  secular" (and related) Syrian Ba'as and Iraqi Bath parties.As American tank turrets turn from Iraq and take threatening aim at Syria, current events increasingly confirm Reed as an astute expert on Middle-Eastern politics.

Imperial Canada Inc. sets out to ask a simple question: why is Canada home to more than 70% of the world's mining companies?Created by the British North America Act of 1867, Canada, rather than turning away from its colonial past, actively embraced, appropriated, and perpetuated the imperial ambitions of its mother country. Two years later, it took possession of Rupert's Land all of the land draining into Hudson Bay and the North West Territories from the Hudson's Bay Company, 3 million square miles of resources, and set about its nation-building enterprise of extending its Dominion  from sea to sea."This Canadian imperial heritage continues to offer the extractive sector worldwide a customized trading environment that: supports speculation, enables capital flows to finance questionable projects abroad, pursues a pro-active diplomacy which successfully promotes this sector to international institutions, opens fiscal pipelines to Caribbean tax havens, provides government subsidies, and most especially, offers a politicized legal haven from any risk of litigious recourse attempted by any community seriously affected by these industries.Traditionally rooted in Canadian law, the right to reputation effectively supersedes freedom of expression and the public's right to information. Hence, Canadian  bodies corporate," i.e. Canadian-based corporations, can sue for  libel" any and all persons or legal entities that quote documents or generate analyses of their corporate practices that they do not approve of. Even foreign academics have become hesitant about presenting their work in Canada for fear of such prosecution.The authors of Imperial Canada Inc., all respected scholars in their fields, meticulously research four factors that contribute to the answer to this question: Quebec's and Ontario's mining codes; the history of the Toronto Stock Exchange; Canada's involvement with Caribbean tax havens; and, finally, Canada's official role of promoting itself to international institutions governing the world's mining sector.