Peter Steinfels reviews Ian Buruma‘s Taming the Gods:
Three years ago, Ian Buruma published Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerence, an analysis of the shocking public slaying by an Islamist extremist of a Dutch filmmaker who, working with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, self-declared atheist and fugitive from Islam, had provocatively attacked Muslim attitudes toward women. The book stirred more than a little controversy, partly because Buruma suggested that the truth about Muslim immigration to Europe and jihadi violence was more complicated than many people, on both the right and left, thought.
Those issues continue to loom in the background of Taming the Gods. But now Buruma has pulled back his camera and panned across three continents, centuries of history, and a wide range of questions about religion and democracy.
