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Rating: 
Summary: Take with a bucket of salt and demand the evidence.
Review: As a supposedly educated cultural anthropologist, John Clark Mead leaves much to be desired. Where was Mead educated? He certainly isn't telling. Even if some life or lives would be in grave danger by Mead revealing too many details from his alleged forays into the underworld of militant Islam, Mead needs to give SOME details just to gain minimal credibility with skeptical and discerning readers. This work is highly suspect and an insult to true scholarship. Mead is obviously not a dispassionate, academic scholar interested in intellectual pursuit. He is instead an ideologue who attempts to put fancy window dressing on his own brand of evangelical fanaticism and paranoia. This book will manage to pass as scholarly and legitimate to the uninformed. But hopefully most readers will know better. Mead has zero credentials (otherwise he wouldn't mind being specific about them!), and you certainly won't find him cited by scholars, researchers or in intelligence community white papers. He doesn't even provide a bibliography, sources, end notes, index- nothing of the sort! Look elsewhere to get high quality, factual information. If Mead had any valuable, reliable information to share, he'd be busy helping the Bush Administration track down and capture terrorists. They need all the help they can get.
Rating: 
Summary: Know the facts
Review: I have been in awe ever since the 9/11 attacks wondering why and who and what. This book is very informative and I recommend it to any one who may need to understand why we are at war.
Rating:
Summary: Very Frightening
Review: If this book doesn't scare you, then you aren't paying attention. The very scary thing about the book is the matter of fact way he arrives at his conclusion. I actually put the book down a couple of times not wanting to read what came next. This book should be required readig for all americans. The only thing I did not like was his very obvious effort to not divulge names and places. under the circumstances I do know why. A VERY disturbing book.
Rating:
Summary: Highly suspect explanation of "the facts"
Review: The claims made in this book are impossible to verify. While passionately written, it lacks a bibliography, references, footnotes, and detail. Instead of answering "who", "what", "when", "where", "how", and "why", this book focuses on the "why" without backing it up with any verifiable facts. One of the primary sources for this book is introduced on page 39: "I shall refer to him as Ahmed... he belonged in some capacity to the largest fundamentalist Islamic organization in the region." Nowhere in the book do you find out who Ahmed is, what organization he's a member of, or what region of the world is being talked about (beyond somewhere that Arabs live). While the author claims he lived in the country for several years, you never find out what country or during what time period. His sponsor in the country was another university, but it's never named. The complete lack of details leaves the reader with a collection of sweeping claims about the Islamic faith, their schools, and hostile motivations towards the West, but without mentioning names, places, or organizations. Not only are the claims of the book impossible to verify, the author's own credentials can't be verified either. While the author claims to hold a cultural anthropology degree from a "top secular university" (pg 32) you never find out where or when he attended school, except that he transferred from an unnamed Christian college to get the secular university credentials. If you're interested in doing research on Islamic terrorism, there are many other books available that include names, dates, references, footnotes, and a bibliography. This book includes none of those things.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read, will shake your personal foundation
Review: This author will really shake your personal foundation when you realize that the enemy we face is not playing games with their religion/belief system like so many of us Americans do. They are truly committed believers, not a small group of insane fanatics, who have set a plan into motion to eradicate what they believe is corrupting their people and faith, i.e., the United States and western civilization. They have set many traps for us and we may very well fall into them. The only criticism I have of the book is the created names for his Muslim friends -- although I can certainly believe that the author would have a very short life span if he disclosed their true names, and probably is on a hit list even now, for revealing what he learned. This is an important book, for his carefully reasoned argument and presentation of Islamic belief. We need to wake up the the danger we are in.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting ideas, but vague ...
Review: This book is extremely vague and slow at the beginning. John Clark Mead takes you through his life as a Christian with a mission to convert the Islamic people, which is not what you would expect from a cultural anthropologist. Once you get through his religious babble to when he actually arrives in this unnamed Islamic country, the book starts getting interesting. He gives a blueprint about how Militant Islamic world will destroy Western civilization, but it lacks any facts, names or predictions of events making his whole idea sound more like a conspiracy theory. The review by queltor hit this book on its nose. With all the facts included in this story, Mead's blueprint might have been a best seller or great information for the CIA, but nobody can seem to verify if any of the information provided in this book is correct. I still recommend reading this book with an open mind and caution, but first you should read several other more factual books on Islamic Militants and Al Qaeda. Mead's blueprint can help in putting the pieces together on why these people hate Western Civilization and what we can do to stop them in their task of destroying the western world.
Rating:
Summary: Masterfully Written - Highest Endorsement
Review: This book, the most masterfully written we've read since the attack and tragedy of September 11th, earns our highest endorsement at withChrist.org. Mr. Mead, an educated anthropologist and evangelical Christian, shares the unvarnished truth regarding the contemporary and historical nature of the millennial struggle between Islam and Western civilization--the Judeo-Christian tradition. His style is easy to read and he largely writes from a sociological perspective being sensitive to largely keep his own religious views in the background. While not a theologian, Mr. Mead supplies the reader with just enough Islamic theology and philosophy to answer fundamental and critical questions, while not overwhelming the reader. However, we do wish he would have drawn the distinction between Islam's pseudo-deity "Allah" and the Almighty Jehovah of the Bible. Theologically, Islam is nothing short of hyper-heretical. Due to Western society's 'crisis of knowledge', Islam has tragically stepped in to fill the epistemological void. While the situation seems bleak, Mead's short account of the military Battle of Tours (France) in his Epilogue was both stunning and deeply inspiring. Our battle is spiritual. The Apostle Paul wrote, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the [unseen] rulers, against the [false] authorities, against the [hidden] powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Ephesians 6:12.
Rating:
Summary: Masterfully Written - Highest Endorsement
Review: This book, the most masterfully written we've read since the attack and tragedy of September 11th, earns our highest endorsement at withChrist.org. Mr. Mead, an educated anthropologist and evangelical Christian, shares the unvarnished truth regarding the contemporary and historical nature of the millennial struggle between Islam and Western civilization--the Judeo-Christian tradition. His style is easy to read and he largely writes from a sociological perspective being sensitive to largely keep his own religious views in the background. While not a theologian, Mr. Mead supplies the reader with just enough Islamic theology and philosophy to answer fundamental and critical questions, while not overwhelming the reader. However, we do wish he would have drawn the distinction between Islam's pseudo-deity "Allah" and the Almighty Jehovah of the Bible. Theologically, Islam is nothing short of hyper-heretical. Due to Western society's 'crisis of knowledge', Islam has tragically stepped in to fill the epistemological void. While the situation seems bleak, Mead's short account of the military Battle of Tours (France) in his Epilogue was both stunning and deeply inspiring. Our battle is spiritual. The Apostle Paul wrote, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the [unseen] rulers, against the [false] authorities, against the [hidden] powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Ephesians 6:12.
Rating:
Summary: Muslim Culture Explained
Review: This is not a large book but it outlines in readable and credible structure a hugh threat that has to be taken seriously if the West is to survive. I just pray that the right people read this book, those that have a say in protecting our Nation. John Clark Mead knows first hand what he's speaking of, and I hope this book gets into the hands of our President and his advisors and that they read it with understanding and wisdom.
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