A collection of contributed papers about the rise of fundamentalist extremism (or rather the failure of the demise of it?) and the dangers of same. This came out only two years after 9/11, so understandably there are a lot of references to that event, but most of this concerns Christianity and the role it has played in swinging the US to the right, and further to the right, and why the movement is more dangerous than anyone thinks. The one thing that rings false in the world 15 years on is the amount of optimism that these extremists will remain fringe...oops. Sort of missed that one, didn't you? Still, the book is good and useful, but...and this is a big but...the creative punctuation makes reading somewhat...challenging. I think it must be an editor's thing because of the consistency of the weird punctuation habits through the work. I would estimate that more than half of all the commas do not belong in the place where they have been placed, and that they need to be moved to places that are crying out for commas to make sentences readable. Occasional semicolons show up, but not where one would naturally expect them, at least not if one has any idea how the English language works. Clauses, run on sentences, sentence fragments, and the propensity to begin way too many sentences with "But" or "So", always, always, always followed by a comma (and almost never appropriately). So this book, which is important and valuable, loses an entire star for readability, since having to read sentences more than once to experiment with punctuation until you understand it is not a recommendation in my mind. Still, if you don't mind that sort of thing, this could be a useful work for you. ( )

There are many problems in the world that can be directly laid on the shoulders of fundamental Christian extremists (and religious extremists in general). I picked this up expecting to read about the Oklahoma City bombing, assassinations of abortion doctors, suppression of science education in schools, abstinence only education, Westboro Baptist Church, etc. Instead, apparently, the worst that can be said about the extreme christian right is that they don't like kids with ADHD and work to suppress research into the disorder. Really? That's the angle? I mean, sure, if true that's bad, but if that's the worst thing they're doing, then I think we're in pretty good shape. Maybe later chapters take on some more serious issues, but I couldn't make it further than two chapters of evil Christians not wanting ADHD kids to have Ritalin while ignoring the herd of elephants in the room frolicking with the colony of 800lb gorillas. ( )