A much-read book that considers the political and philosophical underpinnings of fundamentalist Islam and terrorism in light of the post-9/11 world, Berman, who is associated with leftist discourse in the States, shocked many compatriots in the US by presenting a liberal argument for why there must be a military response to terrorist threats. He also offered a scathing critique of the left-wing response to 9/11, particularly that of Chomsky. Highly controversial was also Berman’s analysis of radical Islam as a totalitarian response to western liberalism. A book that defined a certain strain of post-9/11 discourse surrounding the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.