Religion Studies: Islam: Asia

With unprecedented access to a closed culture, Lacroix offers an account of Islamism in Saudi Arabia. Tracing the last half-century of the Sahwa, or "Islamic Awakening," he explains the brand of Islam that gave birth to Osama bin Laden--one that has been exported, and dangerously misunderstood, around the world.

For 250 years the Turkic Muslims of Tibet, who call themselves Uyghurs today, have cultivated a sense of history and identity that challenges Beijing's national narrative. The roots of this history run deeper than recent conflicts, Rian Thum says, to a time when manuscripts and pilgrimage along the Silk Road dominated understandings of the past.