In the Beginning: Religion's Relevance to Modern Conflict

World history professor and Islamic Civilization expert Laina Farhat-Holzman's newest book explores the earliest beginnings of religion and its relevance to current events in the Middle East and beyond.

How can a world that communicates on the Internet, has broken the genetic code, and is planning a voyage to Mars still be trapped in millennium fantasies, astrology, and satanic cults?

Why are so many countries engaged in open warfare between the world of reason and the world of literal fundamentalist religion?

STRANGE BIRDS FROM ZOROASTERS NEST (Nonetheless Press, September 2003, casebound, 256 pages, $24.95) by Laina Farhat-Holzman, charts the course of religion throughout the world from the first visions to the incredible diversity of late modernity, including its explosion of violence against the modern world.

Farhat-Holzman, professor of world history and Islamic Civilization, served as the cross-cultural expert on projects involving US defense firms, US intelligence agencies, and the Iranian Air Force. A 22-year firsthand observer of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, she continuously charts the growth of radicalized Islam around the world. Her perspective on Islam and Islamists is a combination of domestic and professional experiences combined with her distinguished background as an academic historian.

There is enormous public interest in religion today-particularly in learning about the religions that play starring roles in contemporary world conflicts.

Religions latest resurgence is dredging up primeval images of the end of the world, and has become a vehicle for violence and culture clash," Farhat-Holzman says. The reading public wants to know what is driving the frenzy that appears-to some-as the beginning of the next world war."

Current military situations in the Middle East and beyond, and the Sept. 11 Al Quaeda-linked terrorist events, demand that understanding the worlds various cultures, behaviors, and religions become a vital international priority. STRANGE BIRDS FROM ZOROASTERS NEST (ISBN 1932053123; edited and with a new afterword and index) is the readable history of how religions emerged, how they influenced each other, and how they actually function.