Our guest in this deep-probing discussion is historian Scott Appleby of the University of Notre Dame. He was, together with Martin Marty, the founder and director of a great project on modern religious fundamentalism which involved the contributions of over a hundred scholars from around the world as they investigated  the origins and militant intentions and programs of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism,  Buddhism and Sikhism.

Appleby is the Dean of the new School of Foreign Affairs at Notre Dame and one of the sharpest, wisest and valuably uninhibited analysts of the evil  that men do with religion as a primary political tool. Here he applies his analytic skill and wide knowledge to modern “Islamism” and helps to illuminate the origins and the long-lasting threat that the west (and the world!) must now confront.