Religious Wars

Bernard Lewis examines the historical roots of the frustrations and resentments that dominate the Islamic world today and that are increasingly being expressed in acts of terrorism. He looks at the theological origins of political Islam and tells us what the Islamic doctrine of jihad has meant at different times in history.

The Vatican's silence in the face of Nazi atrocities remains one of the great controversies of our time. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him "Hitler's Pope". But a key part of the story has remained untold. Pius ran the world's largest church, smallest state, and oldest spy service. Saintly but secretive, he skimmed from church charities to pay covert couriers, and surreptitiously tape-recorded his meetings with top Nazis.

Like no book before it, Preachers of Hate uncovers an ancient hatred that threatens the life and livelihood of every American. The "new" anti-Semitism targets not only Jews, but Americans specifically and the West in general. It targets our values, our lifestyle, and our freedoms. It is the single most important issue we face when trying to make sense of the Arab world.

Voici l'histoire époustouflante d'un jeune séminariste plongé, à l'aube de la seconde guerre mondiale, dans la sinistre légion de Hitler.

Maajid Nawaz spent his teenage years listening to American hip-hop and learning about the radical Islamist movement spreading throughout Europe and Asia in the 1980s and '90s. At 16, he was already a ranking member in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a London-based Islamist group. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a top recruiter, a charismatic spokesman for the cause of uniting Islam's political power across the world.

By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.

This book attempts to explore the military lives of Moses, the Buddha, and Muhammad, and the role their war experiences played in their religious lives.

Air Force pilot Captain Carlyle "Smitty" Harris was shot down over Vietnam on April 4, 1965 and taken to the infamous Hoa Lo prison—nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton." For the next eight years, Smitty and hundreds of other American POWs—including John McCain and George "Bud" Day—suffered torture, solitary confinement, and unimaginable abuse. It was there Smitty covertly taught the Tap Code—an old, long-unused World War II method of communication—to many POWs. In turn, they taught others, and it quickly became a way for POWs to communicate without their captors' knowledge.

In an unsettling time in American history, the outbreak of right-wing violence is among the most disturbing developments. In recent years, attacks originating from the far right of American politics have targeted religious and ethnic minorities, with a series of antigovernment militants, religious extremists, and lone-wolf mass shooters inspired by right-wing ideologies. The need to understand the nature of far-right violence is greater than ever. In American Zealots, Arie Perliger provides a wide-ranging and rigorously researched overview of right-wing domestic terrorism.

Know the enemy. Anticipate his attack. Expert linguist Dr. Andrew Farley encounters a device containing thousands of archived files revealing a worldwide spiritual conspiracy. Operation Screwtape is the largest of these files and details the intelligent scheme to steal, kill, and destroy.

During the German occupation of Rome from 1942-1944, Irishman Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty ran an escape organization for Allied POWs and civilians, including Jews. Safe within the Vatican state, he regularly ventured out in disguise to continue his mission, which earned him the nickname 'The Pimpernel of the Vatican'. When the Allies entered Rome, he and his collaborators - priests, nuns, and laypeople of numerous nationalities and religious beliefs - had saved the lives of over 6,500 people.

The early modern era in Europe set the mold for the Western world today. It was a complex, tragic, yet pivotal time. It marked the transition between the dominance of the Catholic church throughout Western Europe and the present age of science, reason, and skepticism. The path through this transition was an exciting yet bloody and sorrowful one. The wars between Catholics and Protestants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries rivaled those of the present in cruelty and atrocity. Durant takes us through the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in France.

The bestselling Biblical fantasy novel series Chronicles of the Nephilim has opened a door for Christian imagination and theology like none other. But many have appreciated the appendices of each novel as much as the novels. Author Brian Godawa shares the Biblical and ancient historical and mythical research that undergirds the fiction. Now all those appendices have been placed together in one book for those who want serious study of the topics of the Watchers, Nephilim, and the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed.

Rarely has a book had such an impact on so many of us here at Ignatius Press. It is one of the most powerful and moving books we have come across. If you can only buy one book this season, this must be the one. Here is the astonishing true story of the harrowing experiences of a young German seminarian drafted into Hitler’s dreaded SS at the onset of World War II.

Deepak Chopra's passionate new book, Peace Is the Way, was inspired by a saying from Mahatma Gandhi: "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." In a world where every path to peace has proved futile, the one strategy that hasn’t been tried is the way of peace itself. "We must not bring one war to an end, or thirty," Chopra tells us, "but the idea of war itself." How can this be done?

The best-selling Unholy Alliance is now in audio! Former leftist radical David Horowitz blows the lid off the dangerous liaison between U.S. liberals and Islamic radicals. With America's battle against the disastrous force of terrorism at hand, Horowitz takes us behind the curtain of the unholy alliance between liberals and the enemy - a force with malevolent intentions, and one that Americans can no longer ignore.

Christianity or Islam: which is the real religion of peace? Almost any liberal pundit will tell you that there's a religion bent on destroying our Constitution, stripping us of our liberties, and imposing religious rule on the U.S. And that religion is . . .Christianity! About Islam, however, the Left is silent--except to claim a moral equivalence between the two: if Islam has terrorists today, that's nothing compared to the Crusades, inquisitions, and religious wars in Christianity's past.

Islamophobia has spiraled into a global menace, and democratic and authoritarian regimes alike have deployed it as a strategy to persecute their Muslim populations. With this book, Khaled A. Beydoun details how the American War on Terror has facilitated and intensified the network of anti-Muslim campaigns unfolding across the world. The New Crusades is the first book of its kind, offering a critical and intimate examination of global Islamophobia and its manifestations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and regions beyond and in between.

London, 1933. At first glance, Austrian opera singer Elsa Mayer-Braun has little in common with the young English typist she encounters on tour. Yet she and Hattie Featherstone forge an instant connection—and strike a dangerous alliance. Using their friendship as a cover, they form a secret society with a daring goal: to rescue as many Jews as possible from Nazi persecution. Though the war’s outbreak threatens Elsa and Hattie’s network, their efforts attract the covert attention of the British government, offering more opportunities to thwart the Germans.

Decorated U.S. military veteran-turned-country musician Keni Thomas gives a personal account of his heart-wrenching experiences in the chaotic 1993 Battle of Mogadishu to express a unique set of leadership lessons and inspired view of our greater purpose. Get It On! reminds listeners "that we, as individuals, do indeed matter, that we are anything but ordinary, fully capable of carrying out life-changing assignments at any level and in any situation. We can make a difference in this world."