Berman does a wonderful job of describing the continuum of thought from the romantic nihilists of the 19th century through both right and left totalitarian states in the 20th to the thoughts of Sayiid Qutb, the hugely influential Koranic scholar. Of particular note, Berman tracked down several volumes of the English translation of Qutb's "In the shadow of the Koran", a key interpretation of the Koran applied to 20th century society. But being a dedicated man of the left, Berman is afflicted with the same tics that he notes in other left-liberals: loathing of the Nixonian-Kissengerian realpolitic (which position I agree with) but holding grudges against any Republican who had any contact with the Nixon administration as being hopelessly and permanenty contaminated. This monomania is illustrated in the last chapter where Berman notes that George W Bush deviated strongly from the realpolitic script, pursuing many of the goals of traditional left-liberals but _cannot_ get away from the fact that many of W's senior staff served in one post or another during the Nixon years. Berman also persists in equating the pseudo-fascist Baath with the jihadis to try and hang Islamist notions on the Right. Lee Harris' "The Death of Reason" has much better insight into "Why do they hate us?" than Berman.
Berman can't bring himself to admit the utility of force, employing a transparent revisionism to nominate the soft left as the proper agents to change the minds of those who hate us, not recognizing the real Kulturkampf between the Islamists and the liberal West.

Of less importance is Berman's revisionist history of the left-liberals in the 1950s and his inability to credit military power with any utility either during the Cold War of during the current conflict. Berman is so in love with soft power that he cannot accept the strength of the religio-cultural Islamist project against attempts at cooption and "reform" coming from the West. ( )

A trenchant analysis of the totalitarian roots of al-Qaeda.