The oldest discovered statue, fashioned some fifteen to twenty thousand years ago, is of a bear. The lion was not always king. From antiquity to the Middle Ages, the bear s centrality in cults and mythologies left traces in European languages, literatures, and legends from the Slavic East to Celtic Britain. Historian Michel Pastoureau considers how this once venerated creature was deposed by the advent of Christianity and continued to sink lower in the symbolic bestiary before rising again in Pyrrhic triumph as a popular toy.

The early Church was threatened by pagan legends of the bear s power, among them a widespread belief that male bears were sexually attracted to women and would violate them, producing half-bear, half-human beings invincible warriors who founded royal lines. Marked for death by the clergy, bears were massacred. During the Renaissance, the demonic prestige bears had been assigned in biblical allegory was lost to the goat, ass, bat, and owl, who were the devil s new familiars, while the lion was crowned as the symbol of nobility. Once the undefeated champions of the Roman arena, prized in princely menageries, bears became entertainers in the marketplace, trained to perform humiliating tricks or muzzled and devoured by packs of dogs for the amusement of humans. By the early twentieth century, however, the bear would return from exile, making its way into the hearts of children everywhere as the teddy bear.

This compelling history reminds us that men and bears have always been inseparable, united by a kinship that gradually moved from nature to culture a bond that continues to this day.

On July 10, 1940, by a 570 to 80 margin, the representatives in the French parliament voted full powers to Philippe Petain, ending the Third Republic and paving the way for the collaborationist Vichy regime. Olivier Wieviorka offers a nuanced portrait of the individuals who determined the fate of France at this critical moment.

Petain claimed to be saving France from ruin. The day of the vote has been described as a "journee des dupes, " the legislators so ignorant or fearful that they voted without a thought to the consequences. But Wieviorka shows that most of the deputies made a considered decision to vote for Petain. He analyzes the factors, such as political culture and regional origins, that motivated the voting on both sides, and traces the men s fates through the war.

Recreating the tense atmosphere of summer 1940, Wieviorka shows how pressures brought on by defeat could affect even the most hardened republicans. He illuminates the complex moral issues inherent in accommodation and collaboration in a time of crisis.

In the popular imagination, the business media, and the schools of business and management that train new generations of entrepreneurs and executives, achieving extraordinary success in business is attributed to far-sighted individuals who have taken bold risks, provided innovative leadership, and introduced new products, services, or ideas superior to those of the competition. Amid the growing skepticism about the means by which vast amounts of wealth are accumulated and its consequences, however, this belief is long overdue for reevaluation.

In From Predators to Icons, Michel Villette, a sociologist, and Catherine Vuillermot, a business historian, examine the careers of thirty-two of today's wealthiest global executives including Warren Buffett, Ingvar Kamprad, Bernard Arnault, Jim Clark, and Richard Branson in order to challenge the conventional explanations for their extreme success and come to a better understanding of modern business practices.

In contrast to the familiar image of the entrepreneur as a visionary with a plan, Villette and Vuillermot instead discover a far less dramatic process of improvised adaptations gradually assembled into a coherent course of conduct. And rather than being risk-takers, those who are most successful in business are risk-minimizers. Huge gains, these case studies reveal, are most reliably obtained in circumstances where the entrepreneur has established careful provisions for risk reduction. As for the view that innovation makes success possible, the authors find that because innovation is an expensive process that takes a long time to produce profits, innovators first of all require capital; success makes innovation possible. The necessary resources, they show, are most often derived from what they provocatively term "predation": ruthlessly taking advantage of imperfections, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities within the market or among competitors. Finally, From Predator to Icon considers the "practical ethics" implemented during the phase in which capital is most rapidly accumulated, as well as the social consequences of these activities.

Drawing on interviews with some of their subjects and, crucially, close readings of the authorized biographies and other hagiographic accounts of these figures, which eliminates the bias of malicious interpretations, Villette and Vuillermot provide revelatory insights about the creation and maintenance of business wealth that will be profitably read by both the captains and the critics of contemporary capitalism."

Based on his experience as a scholar and diplomat stationed in China, Jean-Luc Domenach consults a wealth of archival and contemporary materials to examine China's place in the world. A sympathetic yet critical observer, Domenach brings his intimate knowledge of the country to bear on a range of crucial issues, such as the growth (or deterioration) of China's economy, the government's ever-delayed democratization, the potential outcomes of a national political crisis, and the possible escalation of a revamped authoritarianism.

Domenach ultimately reads China's current progress as a set of easy accomplishments presaging a more difficult era of development. His finely nuanced analysis captures the difficult decisions now confronting China's elite, who are under tremendous pressure to support an economy based on innovation and consumption, establish a political system based on law and popular participation, rethink their national identity and spatial organization, and define a more positive approach to the world's problems. These leaders are also besieged by corruption among their ranks, an increasingly restless urban population, and a sharp decline in the country's demographic growth. Domenach taps into these anxieties and the attempt to alleviate them, revealing a China much less confident and secure than many would believe.

Based on his experience as a scholar and diplomat stationed in China, Jean-Luc Domenach consults a wealth of archival and contemporary materials to examine China's place in the world. A sympathetic yet critical observer, Domenach brings his intimate knowledge of the country to bear on a range of crucial issues, such as the growth (or deterioration) of China's economy, the government's ever-delayed democratization, the potential outcomes of a national political crisis, and the possible escalation of a revamped authoritarianism.

Domenach ultimately reads China's current progress as a set of easy accomplishments presaging a more difficult era of development. His finely nuanced analysis captures the difficult decisions now confronting China's elite, who are under tremendous pressure to support an economy based on innovation and consumption, establish a political system based on law and popular participation, rethink their national identity and spatial organization, and define a more positive approach to the world's problems. These leaders are also besieged by corruption among their ranks, an increasingly restless urban population, and a sharp decline in the country's demographic growth. Domenach taps into these anxieties and the attempt to alleviate them, revealing a China much less confident and secure than many would believe.

Denis Lacorne identifies two competing narratives defining the American identity. The first narrative, derived from the philosophy of the Enlightenment, is essentially secular. Associated with the Founding Fathers and reflected in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers, this line of reasoning is predicated on separating religion from politics to preserve political freedom from an overpowering church. Prominent thinkers such as Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and Jean-Nicolas Demeunier, who viewed the American project as a radical attempt to create a new regime free from religion and the weight of ancient history, embraced this American effort to establish a genuine "wall of separation" between church and state. The second narrative is based on the premise that religion is a fundamental part of the American identity and emphasizes the importance of the original settlement of America by New England Puritans. This alternative vision was elaborated by Whig politicians and Romantic historians in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is still shared by modern political scientists such as Samuel Huntington. These thinkers insist America possesses a core, stable "Creed" mixing Protestant and republican values. Lacorne outlines the role of religion in the making of these narratives and examines, against this backdrop, how key historians, philosophers, novelists, and intellectuals situate religion in American politics.

Denis Lacorne identifies two competing narratives defining the American identity. The first narrative, derived from the philosophy of the Enlightenment, is essentially secular. Associated with the Founding Fathers and reflected in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers, this line of reasoning is predicated on separating religion from politics to preserve political freedom from an overpowering church. Prominent thinkers such as Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and Jean-Nicolas D?meunier, who viewed the American project as a radical attempt to create a new regime free from religion and the weight of ancient history, embraced this American effort to establish a genuine "wall of separation" between church and state.

The second narrative is based on the premise that religion is a fundamental part of the American identity and emphasizes the importance of the original settlement of America by New England Puritans. This alternative vision was elaborated by Whig politicians and Romantic historians in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is still shared by modern political scientists such as Samuel Huntington. These thinkers insist America possesses a core, stable "Creed" mixing Protestant and republican values. Lacorne outlines the role of religion in the making of these narratives and examines, against this backdrop, how key historians, philosophers, novelists, and intellectuals situate religion in American politics.

France's experience of World War II was not primarily one of armed conflict, but rather of occupation, collaboration, resistance, and persecution. Since the end of the war, France has struggled with how to understand and remember that experience. In "Divided Memory," Olivier Wieviorka recounts the role that the memory of the Occupation and the Resistance has played in shaping the sense of the past held by various segments of French society. He explores the way in which memory can focus political and social conflict. Each administration since the war has taken a different approach to responding to these memories and has attempted to steer public opinion through them. Charles de Gaulle tried to overwrite Vichy's collaboration by promoting the story of a French military victory over Germany. Others focused on memorializing victims or attempted to forget this painful time altogether. Wieviorka shows that, disparate as they are, none of these approaches have worked, and France remains divided by its memories of resistance and collaboration.

The denunciation of fundamentalism in France, embodied in the law against the veil and the deportation of imams, has shifted into a systematic attack on all Muslims and Islam. This hostility is rooted in the belief that Islam cannot be integrated into French--and, consequently, secular and liberal-society. However, as Olivier Roy makes clear in this book, Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live concretely in a secularized world while maintaining the identity of a "true believer." They have formulated a language that recognizes two spaces: that of religion and that of secular society.

Western society is unable to recognize this process, Roy argues, because of a cultural bias that assumes religious practice is embedded within a specific, traditional culture that must be either erased entirely or forced to coexist in a neutral, multicultural space. Instead, Roy shows that new forms of religiosity, such as Islamic fundamentalism and Christian evangelicalism, have come to thrive in post-traditional, secular contexts precisely because they remain detached from any cultural background.

In recognizing this, Roy recasts the debate concerning Islam and democracy. Analyzing the French case in particular, in which the tension between Islam and the conception of Western secularism is exacerbated, Roy makes important distinctions between Arab and non-Arab Muslims, hegemony and tolerance, and the role of the "umma" and the sharia in Muslim religious life. He pits Muslim religious revivalism against similar movements in the West, such as evangelical Protestantism and Jehovah's Witnesses, and refutes the myth of a single "Muslim community" by detailing different groups and their inability to overcome their differences.

Roy's rare portrait of the realities of immigrant Muslim life offers a necessary alternative to the popular specter of an "Islamic threat." Supporting his arguments with his extensive research on Islamic history, sociology, and politics, Roy brilliantly demonstrates the limits of our understanding of contemporary Islamic religious practice in the West and the role of Islam as a screen onto which Western societies project their own identity crisis.

We are told that Western/Christian and Muslim/Arab civilizations are heading towards inevitable conflict. The demographics of the West remain sluggish, while the population of the Muslim world explodes, widening the cultural gap and all but guaranteeing the outbreak of war. Leaving aside the media's sound and fury on this issue, measured analysis shows another reality taking shape: rapprochement between these two civilizations, benefiting from a universal movement with roots in the Enlightenment.

The historical and geographical sweep of this book discredits the notion of a specific Islamic demography. The range of fertility among Muslim women, for example, is as varied as religious behavior among Muslims in general. Whether agnostics, fundamentalist Salafis, or al-Qaeda activists, Muslims are a diverse group that prove the variety and individuality of Islam. Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd consider different degrees of literacy, patriarchy, and defensive reactions among minority Muslim populations, underscoring the spread of massive secularization throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

In this regard, they argue, there is very little to distinguish the evolution of Islam from the history of Christianity, especially with Muslims now entering a global modernity. Sensitive to demographic variables and their reflection of personal and social truths, Courbage and Todd upend a dangerous meme: that we live in a fractured world close to crisis, struggling with an epidemic of closed cultures and minds made different by religion.

In the popular imagination, the business media, and the schools of business and management that train new generations of entrepreneurs and executives, achieving extraordinary success in business is attributed to far-sighted individuals who have taken bold risks, provided innovative leadership, and introduced new products, services, or ideas superior to those of the competition. Amid the growing skepticism about the means by which vast amounts of wealth are accumulated and its consequences, however, this belief is long overdue for reevaluation.

In From Predators to Icons, Michel Villette, a sociologist, and Catherine Vuillermot, a business historian, examine the careers of thirty-two of today's wealthiest global executives including Warren Buffett, Ingvar Kamprad, Bernard Arnault, Jim Clark, and Richard Branson in order to challenge the conventional explanations for their extreme success and come to a better understanding of modern business practices.

In contrast to the familiar image of the entrepreneur as a visionary with a plan, Villette and Vuillermot instead discover a far less dramatic process of improvised adaptations gradually assembled into a coherent course of conduct. And rather than being risk-takers, those who are most successful in business are risk-minimizers. Huge gains, these case studies reveal, are most reliably obtained in circumstances where the entrepreneur has established careful provisions for risk reduction. As for the view that innovation makes success possible, the authors find that because innovation is an expensive process that takes a long time to produce profits, innovators first of all require capital; success makes innovation possible. The necessary resources, they show, are most often derived from what they provocatively term "predation": ruthlessly taking advantage of imperfections, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities within the market or among competitors. Finally, From Predator to Icon considers the "practical ethics" implemented during the phase in which capital is most rapidly accumulated, as well as the social consequences of these activities.

Drawing on interviews with some of their subjects and, crucially, close readings of the authorized biographies and other hagiographic accounts of these figures, which eliminates the bias of malicious interpretations, Villette and Vuillermot provide revelatory insights about the creation and maintenance of business wealth that will be profitably read by both the captains and the critics of contemporary capitalism."

Contrary to an optimistic vision of a world "flattened" by the virtues of globalization, the sustainability and positive outcomes of economic and political homogenization are far from guaranteed. For better and for worse, globalization has become the most powerful force shaping the world's geopolitical landscape, whether it has meant integration or fragmentation, peace or war. The future partly depends on how new economic giants such as China, India, and others make use of their power. It also depends on how well Western democracies can preserve their tenuous hold on leadership, cohesion, and the pursuit of the common good. Offering the most comprehensive analysis of world politics to date, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi takes on globalization's cheerleaders and detractors, who, in their narrow focus, have failed to recognize the full extent to which globalization has become a geopolitical phenomenon. Offering an interpretative framework for thought and action, Cohen-Tanugi suggests how we should approach our new "multipolar" world--a world that is anything but the balanced and harmonious system many welcomed as a desirable alternative to the "American Empire." Cohen-Tanugi's point is not that the major trends of economic globalization, technological revolution, regional integration, and democratic progress are no longer at work. His argument is that economic globalization exists in a complex dialectic with the traditional geopolitics it has, ironically, helped to revive. This tension has created an ambivalent world that requires democracies to operate in two realms: the realm of economic integration and multilateralism--or peaceful, astrategic, "postmodern" internationalism--and the more traditional, even regressive realm of confrontation between national and regional strategies of power fought against a background of terrorism, civil wars, and nuclear proliferation.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, observers heralded a new era of social progress, seemingly limitless technological advances, and world peace. But within only a few years, the world was perched on the brink of war, revolution, and human misery on an unprecedented scale. Is it possible that today, in the early twenty-first century, we are on the verge of similar, tumultuous times? Blending a detailed knowledge of international security affairs with history, philosophy, psychology, and literature, Th?r?se Delpech vividly reminds us of the signs and warnings that were missed as the "civilized" world failed to prevent both world wars, the Holocaust, Soviet death camps, and Cambodian killing fields that made the twentieth century so deadly. Drawing a parallel between 1905 and 2005, Delpech warns that it could happen again in this current era of increasing international violence and global lawlessness. She looks ahead to imagine various scenarios and regions that could become flashpoints in the future. Winner of the 2005 Prix Femina de l'essai. Praise for the original French edition, L'Ensauvagement "One doesn't know what to admire most in this book: the precision of information, the scope of reference, the originality of the approach..." --Le Nouvel Observateur "From Iranian nuclear ambitions to the Taiwan question, Delpech reviews all the situations which might lead mankind to succumb to the perennial temptation of savagery --a passionate and lucid book." --L'argus de la presse "L'ensauvagement transcends its surface content, articulating great hope that our reason and will might take hold and overcome unreason." --Politique ?trang?re "Combining introspection and prediction, geopolitics and philosophy, Th?r?se Delpech has issued a warning cry." --Politique Internationale

We are told that Western/Christian and Muslim/Arab civilizations are heading towards inevitable conflict. The demographics of the West remain sluggish, while the population of the Muslim world explodes, widening the cultural gap and all but guaranteeing the outbreak of war. Leaving aside the media's sound and fury on this issue, measured analysis shows another reality taking shape: rapprochement between these two civilizations, benefiting from a universal movement with roots in the Enlightenment.

The historical and geographical sweep of this book discredits the notion of a specific Islamic demography. The range of fertility among Muslim women, for example, is as varied as religious behavior among Muslims in general. Whether agnostics, fundamentalist Salafis, or al-Qaeda activists, Muslims are a diverse group that prove the variety and individuality of Islam. Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd consider different degrees of literacy, patriarchy, and defensive reactions among minority Muslim populations, underscoring the spread of massive secularization throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

In this regard, they argue, there is very little to distinguish the evolution of Islam from the history of Christianity, especially with Muslims now entering a global modernity. Sensitive to demographic variables and their reflection of personal and social truths, Courbage and Todd upend a dangerous meme: that we live in a fractured world close to crisis, struggling with an epidemic of closed cultures and minds made different by religion.

The denunciation of fundamentalism in France, embodied in the law against the veil and the deportation of imams, has shifted into a systematic attack on all Muslims and Islam. This hostility is rooted in the belief that Islam cannot be integrated into French& mdash;and, consequently, secular and liberal-society. However, as Olivier Roy makes clear in this book, Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live concretely in a secularized world while maintaining the identity of a "true believer." They have formulated a language that recognizes two spaces: that of religion and that of secular society.

Western society is unable to recognize this process, Roy argues, because of a cultural bias that assumes religious practice is embedded within a specific, traditional culture that must be either erased entirely or forced to coexist in a neutral, multicultural space. Instead, Roy shows that new forms of religiosity, such as Islamic fundamentalism and Christian evangelicalism, have come to thrive in post-traditional, secular contexts precisely because they remain detached from any cultural background.

In recognizing this, Roy recasts the debate concerning Islam and democracy. Analyzing the French case in particular, in which the tension between Islam and the conception of Western secularism is exacerbated, Roy makes important distinctions between Arab and non-Arab Muslims, hegemony and tolerance, and the role of the "umma" and the sharia in Muslim religious life. He pits Muslim religious revivalism against similar movements in the West, such as evangelical Protestantism and Jehovah's Witnesses, and refutes the myth of a single "Muslim community" by detailing differentgroups and their inability to overcome their differences.

Roy's rare portrait of the realities of immigrant Muslim life offers a necessary alternative to the popular specter of an "Islamic threat." Supporting his arguments with his extensive research on Islamic history, sociology, and politics, Roy brilliantly demonstrates the limits of our understanding of contemporary Islamic religious practice in the West and the role of Islam as a screen onto which Western societies project their own identity crisis.

"A must read for all who continue to grapple with the twin legacy of hatred and hope from September 11. . . "*

International terrorism expert Roland Jacquard's "In the Name of Osama bin Laden" presents a dramatic portrait of the world's most wanted terrorist and his extensive brotherhood--the network of people who operate "in his name." Published originally in France the very week of September 11, as events in the United States shook the world, the book has become an international bestseller.
Jacquard details how bin Laden became an international emblem of fundamentalist, pan-Islamic, anti-U.S. fervor and the leader of a brotherhood so passionate that devotees who have never met him will act autonomously in his name. The author explains the global character of bin Laden's organization, elaborating the extent of his sphere of influence in Europe and Asia. Jacquard reveals the construction of bin Laden's networks--including a profile of his inner circle--and their collaboration with overlapping webs of banking, drug trafficking, religious, and terrorist organizations. He considers the brotherhood's access to biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and warns that, with or without bin Laden, this global terrorist force will remain a threat.
Now in English, this edition has been substantially updated in light of recent world events and expanded to include previously unpublished materials, featuring a new introduction and afterword. New documents include an April 2001 interview by the author with bin Laden; a September 24 proclamation by bin Laden to Muslims in Pakistan; and a key page from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri's book justifying eternal jihad, which was smuggled out of Afghanistan in October 2001.

Contrary to an optimistic vision of a world "flattened" by the virtues of globalization, the sustainability and positive outcomes of economic and political homogenization are far from guaranteed. For better and for worse, globalization has become the most powerful force shaping the world's geopolitical landscape, whether it has meant integration or fragmentation, peace or war. The future partly depends on how new economic giants such as China, India, and others make use of their power. It also depends on how well Western democracies can preserve their tenuous hold on leadership, cohesion, and the pursuit of the common good.

Offering the most comprehensive analysis of world politics to date, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi takes on globalization's cheerleaders and detractors, who, in their narrow focus, have failed to recognize the full extent to which globalization has become a geopolitical phenomenon. Offering an interpretative framework for thought and action, Cohen-Tanugi suggests how we should approach our new "multipolar" world--a world that is anything but the balanced and harmonious system many welcomed as a desirable alternative to the "American Empire."

Cohen-Tanugi's point is not that the major trends of economic globalization, technological revolution, regional integration, and democratic progress are no longer at work. His argument is that economic globalization exists in a complex dialectic with the traditional geopolitics it has, ironically, helped to revive. This tension has created an ambivalent world that requires democracies to operate in two realms: the realm of economic integration and multilateralism--or peaceful, astrategic, "postmodern" internationalism--and the more traditional, even regressive realm of confrontation between national and regional strategies of power fought against a background of terrorism, civil wars, and nuclear proliferation.

"A must read for all who continue to grapple with the twin legacy of hatred and hope from September 11. . . "*

International terrorism expert Roland Jacquard's "In the Name of Osama bin Laden" presents a dramatic portrait of the world's most wanted terrorist and his extensive brotherhood--the network of people who operate "in his name." Published originally in France the very week of September 11, as events in the United States shook the world, the book has become an international bestseller.
Jacquard details how bin Laden became an international emblem of fundamentalist, pan-Islamic, anti-U.S. fervor and the leader of a brotherhood so passionate that devotees who have never met him will act autonomously in his name. The author explains the global character of bin Laden's organization, elaborating the extent of his sphere of influence in Europe and Asia. Jacquard reveals the construction of bin Laden's networks--including a profile of his inner circle--and their collaboration with overlapping webs of banking, drug trafficking, religious, and terrorist organizations. He considers the brotherhood's access to biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and warns that, with or without bin Laden, this global terrorist force will remain a threat.
Now in English, this edition has been substantially updated in light of recent world events and expanded to include previously unpublished materials, featuring a new introduction and afterword. New documents include an April 2001 interview by the author with bin Laden; a September 24 proclamation by bin Laden to Muslims in Pakistan; and a key page from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri's book justifying eternal jihad, which was smuggled out of Afghanistan in October 2001.

This work provides a detailed narrative of the civil war in the Vendee region of western France, which lasted for much of the 1790s but was most intensely fought at the height of the Reign of Terror, from March 1793 to early 1795. In this shocking book, Reynald Secher argues that the massacres which resulted from the conflict between "patriotic" revolutionary forces and those of the counterrevolution were not the inevitable result of fierce battle, but rather were "premediated, committed in cold blood, massive and systematic, and undertaken with the conscious and proclaimed will to destroy a well-defined region, and to exterminate an entire people." Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Secher argues that more than 14 per cent of the population and 18 per cent of the housing stock in the Vendee was destroyed in this catastrophic conflict. Secher's review of the social and political structure of the region presents a different image of the people of the Vendee than the stereotype common among historians favorable to the French Revolution. He demonstrates that they were not archaic and superstitious or even necessarily adverse to the forward-looking forces of the Revolution. Rather, the region turned against the Revolution because of a series of misguided policy choices that failed to satisfy the desire for reform and offended the religious sensibilities of the Vendeans. Using an array of primary sources, many from provincial archives, including personal accounts and statistical data, Secher argues for a demythologized view of the French Revolution. Contrary to most 20th-century academic accounts of the Revolution, which have either ignored, apologized for, or explained away the Vendee, Secher demonstrates that the vicious nature of this civil war is a key event that forces us to reconsider the revolutionary regime. His work provides a significant case study for readers interested in the relationships between religion, region, and political violence.

To all appearances, Eliott's life has been a success. At 60, he is an esteemed surgeon with a daughter he adores. The only thing missing is Ilena--a beautiful, generous-hearted girl who died 30 years ago. But when he is given an extraordinary opportunity to revisit his past, Eliott suddenly finds himself in 1970s San Francisco searching for the passionate young doctor who has yet to lose the love of his life. What ensues is a story full of intelligence, hope, and humor about making the right choices and trying to keep what we most desire.

Amidst the roil of war and instability across the Middle East, the West is still searching for ways to understand the Islamic world. Stephane Lacroix has now given us a penetrating look at the political dynamics of Saudi Arabia, one of the most opaque of Muslim countries and the place that gave birth to Osama bin Laden.

The result is a history that has never been told before. Lacroix shows how thousands of Islamist militants from Egypt, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries, starting in the 1950s, escaped persecution and found refuge in Saudi Arabia, where they were integrated into the core of key state institutions and society. The transformative result was the Sahwa, or Islamic Awakening, an indigenous social movement that blended political activism with local religious ideas. "Awakening Islam" offers a pioneering analysis of how the movement became an essential element of Saudi society, and why, in the late 1980s, it turned against the very state that had nurtured it. Though the Sahwa Insurrection failed, it has bequeathed the world two very different, and very determined, heirs: the Islamo-liberals, who seek an Islamic constitutional monarchy through peaceful activism, and the neo-jihadis, supporters of bin Laden's violent campaign.

"Awakening Islam" is built upon seldom-seen documents in Arabic, numerous travels through the country, and interviews with an unprecedented number of Saudi Islamists across the ranks of today s movement. The result affords unique insight into a closed culture and its potent brand of Islam, which has been exported across the world and which remains dangerously misunderstood.

In this long-overdue history of Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, acclaimed French author Gonzague Saint Bris recounts Lafayette's invaluable contributions to the American War of Independence and, later, the French Revolution of 1789. The first study of Lafayette to appear in almost ten years, Saint Bris' new volume recounts the young Lafayette's personal friendship with George Washington, who went so far as to refer to Lafayette as his "adopted son," and his pivotal role as Washington's aide-de-camp in helping establish the fledgling American nation. Lafayette's presence at the British surrender at Yorktown is a stark reminder of just how closely our forefather's victory hinged on the help of our French allies, who were roused into action by Lafayette himself. equally absorbing and less well known is Lafayette's idealistic but naive efforts to plant the fruits of the American-style democracy he so admired in the unreceptive soil of his homeland.

In the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11, people around the world -- and Europeans in particular -- came together in unprecedented demonstrations of compassion for and solidarity with the people of the United States. Since then, however, relations between Europe and America have become perilously contentious. The new unilateral and preemptive tone of U.S. foreign policy, wedded to old fears of American hegemony and an irreducible strain of anti-Americanism, have alienated and angered Europeans, even as Europe's refusal to endorse key American policies has drawn charges of ingratitude and irrelevance.

For noted French political observer Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, this growing rift dates back to the end of the cold war and poses profound dangers for the intertwined futures of America, Europe, and the world. In his new book, An Alliance at Risk, he argues that although the ties that have united Europe and America for decades remain stronger than the propagandists of a transatlantic schism would have us believe, deepening transatlantic differences foster an increasing mistrust that prevents constructive dialogue and action.

He begins by placing global anti-Americanism in historical perspective and tracing the evolution and progressive alteration of European-American relations from the postwar period to the Iraqi crisis. Stressing the need for strong transatlantic solidarity in the new global environment, Cohen-Tanugi sets forth the case and prerequisites for such cooperation, calling on Europe to assume fully its responsibilities on the world stage and on America to address the contradictions and inadequacies of its foreign policy and become more attentive to theinternational community, its sensitivities and rules. Envisioning what this renewed partnership might look like in the future, he concludes that in a world plagued by profound disorder and rabid anti-Westernism, the distance between the United States and the European Union must be bridged to propagate the democratic values they share, confront global challenges, and ensure the stability of the world.

Praise for Laurent Cohen-Tanugi's Previous Books

Le Droit sans l'Etet:

"This is the most Tocquevillian of the books on the United States written since Tocqueville, and for this very reason, the best one." -- Stanley Hoffman

"Laurent Cohen-Tanugi's Le Droit sans l'Etet must be the most profoudly pro-American essay to have come out of French intellectual milieu which has been quite favorably disposed toward the United States of late. The book's comparative analysis of the French and American judicial system may well constitute the high water mark of French liberal reconsiderations on the nature of the State, the role of civil society, and on the virtues of the American democratic model." -- Diana Pinto, author of French Politics and Society

L'Europa en Danger:

"Laurent Cohen-Tanugi's L'Europa en Danger is perhaps the best think piece in the flood of Maastricht referendum books." -- George Ross, author of French Politics and Society

"The best discussion of these issues I know of is by Laurent Cohen-Tanugi." -- Stanley Hoffman, The New York Review of Books

In this long-overdue history of Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, acclaimed French author Gonzague Saint Bris recounts Lafayette's invaluable contributions to the American War of Independence and, later, the French Revolution of 1789. The first study of Lafayette to appear in almost ten years, Saint Bris' new volume recounts the young Lafayette's personal friendship with George Washington, who went so far as to refer to Lafayette as his "adopted son," and his pivotal role as Washington's aide-de-camp in helping establish the fledgling American nation. Lafayette's presence at the British surrender at Yorktown is a stark reminder of just how closely our forefather's victory hinged on the help of our French allies, who were roused into action by Lafayette himself. equally absorbing and less well known is Lafayette's idealistic but naive efforts to plant the fruits of the American-style democracy he so admired in the unreceptive soil of his homeland.