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Islamic Societies in Practice, 2nd Edition by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (University Press of Florida) Originally written in the wake of the Gulf War, this book introduced the West to everyday Arab-Islamic cultures and societies, humanizing the region and its people. It ventured behind the headlines to offer a positive, constructive view of Islam and Muslims, showing how Islam is lived and practiced in daily life. Now revised and expanded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Islamic Societies in Practice embraces the breadth of global Islam with significant new material on Islam in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States, as well as the Middle East. New maps and illustrations are included, detailing the diversity and representation of Islam and Muslims throughout the world. Additional material includes discussions of male and female relations; folk Islam, popular expressions of faith, and the five pillars; Sufism, including the Turkish Dervishes; ethnic and racial differences in the Muslim world; Islamic law and the application of harsh punishments; political Islam and the future of the state in the Islamic world; and the many voices of progressive Muslims--feminists, human rights activists, and anti-extremist writers. More

The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush by Peter Singer (Dutton) From provocative ethicist and author Peter Singer, whose books have sold more than 700,000 copies: a chilling exposé of George W. Bush’s moral failure on dozens of hot-button issues.
More than any president in recent memory, George W. Bush invokes the language of good versus evil and right versus wrong. Controversial professor of ethics Peter Singer has put his spotlight on President Bush’s moral claims. The results are required reading. More

The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology edited by Peter Scott, William T. Cavanaugh (Blackwell Companions to Religion: Blackwell) Written by a team of international experts, this Companion provides the first comprehensive survey and interpretation of contemporary Christian political theology. The Companion comprises 35 freshly-commissioned essays which embody the best current thinking in the field. More

Religion and Politics in the United States, 4th Edition by Kenneth D. Wald (Paperback) (Rowman & Littlefield) On the day Wald signed a contract to produce this  4^th edition of Religion and Politics in the United States, CBS News led its evening broadcast with two stories about religion in politics. The first reported how religious conservatives were pressuring President George W. Bush to ban medical research using stem cells taken from discarded embryos. Despite the promise of the new technology in fighting injury and disease, opponents claimed that extracting cells from embryos amounted to terminating human life. That story was coupled with reports about an alleged deal between the White House and the Salvation Army. The religious charity was told that it would be granted permission to ignore state and local legislation against employment discrimination if it supported President Bush's proposal for federally funded "faith-based" social services. According to the Salvation Army, it wanted to deny employment to gays because they did not follow Christian teachings on marriage. Before the broadcast concluded, the anchor informed viewers of a new effort to amend the U.S. Constitution by defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The proposal, aimed to forestall gay marriages, originated with conservative religious groups and the key supporters were heavily drawn from major religious denominations. More

The Second Message of Islam by Mahmud Muhammad Taha (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East : Syracuse University Press) A small but influential religious party in the early 1980s was the Republican Brothers. A Sufi shaykh, Mahmud Muhammad Taha, founded the Republican Brothers in the 1950s as an Islamic reform movement stressing the qualities of tolerance, justice, and mercy. Taha came to prominence in 1983 when he opposed Nimeiri's implementation of the sharia as being contrary to the essence of Islam. He was arrested and subsequently executed for heresy in January 1985. The execution of such a widely revered religious figure--Taha was seventy-six--aroused considerable revulsion in Sudan and was one of the factors that helped precipitate the coup against Nimeiri. Although the Republican Brothers survived the loss of its leader and participated in the political process during the parliamentary period, it has not been politically active since 1989. More

Howard Dean: A Citizen's Guide to the Man Who Would Be President by Dirk Van Susteren (Steerforth Press) Evenhanded reportage makes these essays by home-state journalists politically savvy generally useful for getting an idea about who Dean is and what his main take on the policies are.

Less than a year ago, Howard Dean was the most obscure candidate in a crowded field of aspirants for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. Once he is widely regarded as the one to beat. Dean burst onto the national stage at the Democratic National Committee’s 2003 winter meeting. A few months after the Democrats had failed to keep control of the Senate or win back the House of Representatives with the 2002 mid-term elections, the former governor of Vermont strode to the podium at the DNC’s worried gathering and blurted out, "What I want to know is why so many Democrats in Washington aren’t standing up against Bush’s unilateral war in Iraq. My name is Howard Dean, and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." The effect was electric. Dean had seized the moment, and he has followed it up with aggressive campaigning and a record-setting fund-raising effort. More

Choosing the President 2004: A Citizen's Guide to the Electoral Process by The League of Women Voters (The Lyons Press) From the early jockeying and the first candidate announcements to the final tally on Election Day, choosing the president is an exciting, sometimes bewildering, and ever evolving process that dominates American politics for up to two years. Choosing the President is a thorough yet accessible and completely nonpartisan look at the players and events, explaining every important landmark on the road to the White House including: 

• publicly visible events such as primaries, caucuses, and conventions 

• the strategies that guide fund-raising, campaigning, and spin doctoring 

• institutions that include the national parties, governmental oversight committees, and public-policy organizations

• voting rights and voter behavior 

• the role of the media and the effects of polls and reporting 

• the actual laws that govern how we choose the president-from the Constitution to the latest campaign-finance rules 

While casting a vote is every citizen's right, casting an informed vote is every citizen's responsibility. This completely up-to-date and fully revised guide will enable every citizen to cast that informed vote.

Violence, Inequality, and Human Freedom, Revised Edition by Peter Iadicola, Anson D. Shupe (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) (paperback) Since writing the first edition of this book, the levels of violence in wars, ter­rorist attacks, and the general deprivation of peoples throughout the Southern Hemisphere of the world has increased. On September 11, 2001, we all watched in horror as a commercial aircraft commandeered by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, killing thousands of people. After the initial shock, for a brief moment there began a discussion as to why this happened. How could people be willing to kill themselves to kill others? More

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