I regularly read books by authors who adhere to an ideology of hostility against Arabs and Muslims. Efraim Karsh is an example. When I saw his Islamic Imperialism: A History book, I thought that it could be interesting. I finished it on the plane yesterday. What a failed project: an interesting idea but so badly executed by our author. What promised to be an original argument in favor of Islamic imperialism thesis, turned out to be a regular blow-by-blow account of Islamic history. Nothing new: nothing new at all. The author, of course, relies not on the entire sweep of existing scholarly literature and primary early sources on Islam, but he selectively quotes from them hoping to paint the most negative image. But he did not know that by that he was undermining his own case. Obsessed with finding negative and unfavorable stories and anecdotes, he relished telling you about drunken caliphs, and internecine warfare in the body of the Ummah. But that clashes with the thesis of the overarching goal of Islamic Empire that those caliphs were seeking. But what is rather comical is that the way Karsh (who has an obsession with Edward Said bordering on the malady) defines (or not defines) the goal of Islamic imperialism. So for him, Nasser, Muhammad, all the caliphs, concubines, Aflaq, Arafat, Husayn, Faysal, Edward Said, Bin Laden, Saddam Husayn, Hasan Banna, Sayyid Qutb among others were ALL seeking the same goal of establishing "Allah's Empire" as he later calls it. So intent is he on superficially making his case, that he mistranslates any usage of the word dawlah (state) as "empire."(p. 64) Even the 1967 war which was launched by Israel and led to expansion of the Zionist state is treated as an attempt by Nasser to--you guessed it right--establish "Allah's Empire." So if Arabs defend their lands from Israeli invasions and attacks, they are no more than trying to establish an Islamic Empire. The part of the book that reaches the Ottoman Empire is based on the established literature, and is written chronologically--with an eye for the bizarre and the unusual: I mean why is it important for him to tell us about the Umayyad Caliph Yazid's attachment to his pet monkey? Is the attachment to a pet monkey another evidence for Karsh of the existence of "an Islamic Empire"? But the later part is the most confused and incoherent hodge podge that I have seen: he would talk about Nasser, and then go back to Churchill, and then go back to Sharif Husayn, and on and on. He does not understand the meaning of `Ayyarun in Islamic history (p. 48): he lists the one meaning of it, but it has different (opposite) meanings. Ibn Mandhur said that `Ayyar can be used to praise or to blame. And his book is so tied to his hostile agenda, that he can't get himself to admit what even classical Orientalists have admitted: the clear contributions of the Arab-Islamic civilization in the various fields. For him, all the contributions were mere reflections Hellenistic culture and science. Even Arabic literature is based on Hellenistic "motifs and themes."(p. 68) His main nemesis is Nasser: he even claimed that Nasser never ventured outside of Egypt when Nasser fought in the 1948 war, and that Nasser never cared about the Arabs (he comically quotes King Husayn on Nasser and tells us that Nasser used to "confide" in him). But this is the season for a book like this: anybody who has a hostile agenda toward Muslims and Arabs is now in high demand, and will be published with enthusiasm in the US. At least classical Orientalists had qualities of erudition, knowledge, rigor, meticulousness, and vast language skills. The present-day imitators are but a caricature of classical Orientalists.