218 The American Journal of lslamic Social Sciences 20:3 & 4 The Rise and Fall of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West Anthony J Dennis Lima, OH: Wyndham Hall Press� 2001, 2d ed 157 pages. Historians and literary critics looking for examples of modern literature using classic Orientalist discourse will find The Rise and Fall of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West a useful tool. Anthony J. Dennis presents 1,400 years of history, interprets the Qur'an and the Shari'ah, scrutinizes Sunni and Shi'a sectarianism, psychoanalyzes Muslims, com­ ments on the status of women, discusses international political and national movements, and gives diplomatic and military contingency plans for civil­ ians and policymakers to stem the "Islamic threat" to the West in 157 pages (including notes). His second edition forward begins with a polite "I-told-you-so" claiming that 9/11 occurred because Americans were not as vigilant as he told them to be in his first edition (1996), that it was the "first chapter in what promises to be a long battle" (forward) between Islam and the West. According to the author, the fall of communism ended the cold war system of checks and balances and allowed rogue Islamic states to flour­ ish. Iran, being one of the oldest rogue states and an established enemy of the United States, took the USSR's place in stimulating and directing rev­ olutions. Given that Muslims are religiously directed to hate all non­ Muslims and western prosperity is a reminder of their shortcomings, Muslims are jealous and eager to embrace the new revolution. Dennis outlines his argument in seven thin and successively shrinking chapters. He first laments the end of communism and the KGB, because nuclear arms, now unprotected, are being sold by Russian scientists and soldiers. Chapter 2 gives a cursory explanation of Islam and its ills, and chapter 3 describes how Iran, the great global Muslim thought-control cen­ ter, overcame religious sectarian divides to stimulate revolutions in Central Asia and the Middle East. In chapter 4, Dennis again revisits the sale of nuclear anns to Islamic states, and in chapters 5 and 6 loosely describes how terrorism might occur with nuclear and conventional arsenals. He gives a generalized plan to minimize the diabolical Iranian-led Muslim threat in his last chapter, which includes using ballistic missiles (which, he explains, was delegitimized when the Liberals dubbed it "Star Wars") and aiding the Russians in fighting independence movements among Muslims. 220 The American Journal of lslamic Social Sciences 20:3 & 4 His fallacious claims are off-set by inadequate research. He mislead­ ingly sprinkles factoids from a single article to give the loose semblance of a well-researched paper. For example, to demonstrate the Iranian threat to the West, 35 of the 73 reference notes in a small 13-page chapter are from the same article. At least two other articles are used, on average, four times in the same 13-page chapter. Dennis abandons this strategy in his last five chapters, where his reference notes dwindle to a third of what they were. It it is unclear if Dennis believes that he has successfully deceived his reader, or if he could not maintain such poor academic standards. Dennis' work falls short of full-blown hate literature because of his odd attempt at political correctness. He declares that blaming Islam for the radicalization of Muslims is faulty logic and equivalent to blaming the B ible for the Crusades, and that many Muslims in the West choose to live peaceful lives. He even buries a positive statement about religious toler­ ance during the golden era oflslam in his Orientalist discourse. But these types of statements contradict his central argument: The fundamental tenet of Islam is to declare war against all non-Muslims. These state ­ ments, plus "the moral high ground," appear to be placed to ease the con­ science of citizens and policymakers, and perhaps even his own, so that they can use the Constitution to shield their freedoms while simultane­ ously using its rhetoric to smother the rights of others. Nergis Mazid Communications Instructor, Communications Department Georgian College, Barrie, Ontario, Canada