America & Islam

Lawrence Pintak is an award-winning journalist and scholar who has written about America’s complex relationship with Islam since 1980. He was the founding dean of The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University (2009-2016) and was named a Fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2017 for “outstanding service to the profession of journalism” around the world. A former CBS News Middle East correspondent with a PhD in Islamic Studies, Pintak been called the foremost chronicler of the interaction between Arab and Western media. He has won two Overseas Press Club awards and was twice nominated for international Emmys. Prior to WSU, Pintak served as director of the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at The American University in Cairo. He is the host of The Murrow Interview, a series of broadcast conversations with leading figures in international affairs and global journalism and was founding publisher of the online journal Arab Media & Society. His work appears in The New York Times, ForeignPolicy.com, CNN.com, the International Herald Tribune, The Seattle Times and a variety of other publications and he is frequently interviewed by NPR, CNN, Al Jazeera English, BBC and news organizations around the world. His books include Islam for Journalists (co-editor, 2014); The New Arab Journalist (2011); Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the War of Ideas (2006); Seeds of Hate: How America’s Flawed Middle East Policy Ignited the Jihad (2003); and Beirut Outtakes (1988). He holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Wales.

Table of Contents
Reviews ix
About the Author xi
Author’s Note xiii
Introduction 1
Section I: Politics – The Muslim Bogeyman 9
Chapter 1: Media Codependence 11
Chapter 2: Prisoners of The Long War 31
Chapter 3: The American Taliban 47
Chapter 4: Cogitative Dissonance 53
Chapter 5: The Morning After 59
Section II: (Mis)Perceptions – Separating Fact from Fiction 71
Chapter 6: Not All Islamists Want Your Head 73
Chapter 7: The Myth of the Muslim Monolith 81
Chapter 8: How the West Created Radical Islam 101
Chapter 9: The Islamic States of America 123
Section III: Policies – Seeing Black & White in a Sea of Gray 141
Chapter 10: Brotherhood of the Orb 143
Chapter 11: The Wahhabi Project 153
Chapter 12: Tempest in the Gulf 165
Chapter 13: Between Iran and a Hard Place 173
Chapter 14: Return of the Ottomans 183
Section IV: Prospects – Islam Beyond Trump 189
Chapter 15: The Prince 191
Chapter 16: The Americanization of Islam 199
Chapter 17: Voices of Reason 211
Chapter 18: Islam UnTrumped 219
Postscript 231
Notes 235
Bibliography 277
Index 313