Against Us

Praise

“For far too long, U.S. policymakers have relied on a faulty, dangerous premise: We only have to convince the rest of the world of our righteousness to dispel the growing, anti-American tide that has swept across the Arab and Muslim worlds since 2001. In his insightful, captivating and informative book, Jim Sciutto, a veteran reporter in the Middle East, shows how misguided that notion is. To much of the rest of the world, particularly the Middle East, American foreign policy appears singularly imperial. In fact, in less than a decade, two distinct versions of reality have emerged — one there, one here — and in the way America is perceived, they rarely intersect. We can’t wish away what has happened to our image. We have to understand the phenomenon. We have to recognize it. And Sciutto’s book is essential reading in doing so.”
—Anthony Shadid, Middle East correspondent, Washington Post

“Jim Sciutto begins Against Us with his discovery that some of those who hate America live literally down his street.  He goes on to find similar sentiments in a discomforting–even frightening–number of places. Against Us is a solid job of reporting, a personal journey of discovery, and a wakeup call for all who read it.”
—Charles Gibson, ABC News

“Although he paints a sobering picture, Sciutto offers hope for Americans seeking amicable relationships with Muslims …. Much-needed light on dark geopolitical realities.”
—Booklist

"A foreign correspondent for ABC News, Sciutto examines and explains the increasingly negative attitudes toward the United States among citizens of Muslim and Arab countries in this deeply insightful book. Structured around interviews conducted in the Middle East and the U.K., the book offers ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that anti-American sentiment–once the province of fringe groups–has gone mainstream, becoming in effect, a form of Middle Eastern nationalism, uniting moderates and radicals, Muslims and Christians for whom “freedom implies the freedom from American interference.” Sciutto weaves together interviews with historical background, poll data and personal experience in this consistently informative and captivating account. In the strongest interviews, including one with a young, reform-minded Iranian activist and another with an Iraqi doctor, the book sets intense, sometimes horrifying experiences against a complicated and changing political backdrop. The author makes a few amorphous foreign policy recommendations on the basis of his research, but the book is less interesting for what it reveals about American policy than for its empathetic and candid depiction of its subjects and their lives."
—Publishers Weekly