Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World

From the Iranian hostage crisis through the Gulf War and the bombing of the World Trade Center, the American news media have portrayed Islam as a monolithic entity, synonymous with terrorism and religious hysteria. At the same time, Islamic countries use Islam to justify unrepresentative and often repressive regimes. Combining political commentary with literary criticism, Covering Islam continues Edward Said's lifelong investigation of the ways in which language not only describes but also defines political reality.