Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
'[A] masterpiece of reportorial thoroughness, painstaking research, and serious reflection.' --Edward W. Said
'Cooley’s important and timely book examines a strange love affair that went disastrously wrong, the alliance between America and some of the most conservative and fanatical followers of Islam.' --Los Angeles Times Book Review
'The devil of John Cooley’s unsettling book is in the detail ... A persuasive argument against one-night stands in international alliances and makes clear that there will be an intolerable price to pay if Islam replaces communism as the next ‘Satanic foe”’. --Independent on Sunday
Karl E. Meyer
Unholy Wars asks salient questions and draws on an impressive body of sources.
— Los Angeles Times Book Review
Library Journal
Cooley, an ABC correspondent who has spent many years in the Middle East, calls his book a "narration," and indeed it reads more like a conversation than a traditional book. He focuses on the numerous riots, uprisings, and terrorist acts in the Arabic-speaking parts of the Middle East over the last two decades, which began when freedom fighters in Afghanistan returned to their home countries after the Afghan war. Cooley carries such ties even to the World Trade Center and Kenyan and Tanzanian embassy bombings. Since the CIA (and others) funded the fighters in Afghanistan, we are reaping a strange harvest for our efforts. Although there are minor factual errors and some of the movements may have fewer ties to Afghanistan than Cooley implies in his more sweeping statements, this provocative book certainly will provide insight into many events in the Middle East for the general reader.--Donald Johnson, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Minneapolis Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
New York Times Book Review
Cooley is to be commended for undertaking the ambitious task of tracing the repercussions of the Afghan war and for coming up with a great many details of value and interest.
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Cooley's important and timely book examines a strange love affair that went disastrously wrong, the alliance between America and some of the most conservative and fanatical followers of Islam.
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