Book Review: John M Owen IV's Confronting Political Islam: Six Lessons from the Wests Past

It speaks to the rapid rate of contemporary political developments that readers of John M. Owen IV’s 2015 book Confronting Political Islam: Sex Lessons from the Wests Past are already able to test his lessons against an entirely new and unforeseeable combination of global events. These include the emergence of the Islamic State movement in Iraq and Syria and the role played by Western born fighters, the collaboration between Russia and Syria to defeat Syrian rebel groups, the significant escalation in jihadist attacks, particularly across Europe, the failed Turkish coup attempt and European refugee crisis, in which the faith of refugees is central to western concern. Most recently, we have seen the election of a US President determined to combat ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ as a primary element of his administration’s foreign policy. This book is both ambitious and expansive, seeking to draw upon the Wests own deep (and dark) history of religious conflict to understand the challenges of contemporary political Islam.