Surveys the historical events and cultural trends which have produced Islamist terrorism. After reviewing Muslim theology pertaining to war and the West (particularly Christendom), the author assesses the Crusades, Renaissance and Reformation Europe, and the post-revolutionary era leading to the founding of Israel. America came to be the enemy both because it supplanted Britain as paragon of the imperialist West and also as it represents libertinism (i.e., separation of church and state, permissive public sexuality, commercialism). The failure of Islam to adopt to the market economy and democratic government have mired the peoples of the Muslim world’s Arabian heartland in destitution. Ironically, the one success story, Saudi oil production, has been so tightly restricted to elites that the country has become the wellspring of radical Wahabism, which often disregards traditional theology. A succinct and useful contribution to understanding the distinction between holy war and Muslim terrorism, but what can the West do to remedy matters?