cover image THE TWO FACES OF ISLAM: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition 
to Terror

THE TWO FACES OF ISLAM: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror

Stephen Schwartz, . . Doubleday, $25 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-385-50692-2

Schwartz challenges President Bush's "axis of terror." "The real exporters of international Islamic extremism and terror," he says, are not Iraq or Iran, but an American ally: the Saudis. Saudia Arabia is dominated by Wahhabism, which journalist Schwartz (Kosovo: Background to a War) labels a "fascistic" cult. And the West, he goes on, has "nurtured this serpent in [its] very bosom" by supporting the Saudis in the belief that they were "moderate." (On sale Oct. 15)