Just days prior to her assassination, the late former prime minister of troubled Pakistan completed the manuscript of this book, which held great personal importance to her. Its importance extends beyond the writer's own sense of purpose and accomplishment, however, because it is a vastly significant document for anyone seeking to understand the nature of past and contemporary Islam and its current interface with the West. The reconciliation to which the book's title refers is Bhutto's chief thesis: "two critical tensions ... must be reconciled to prevent the clash of civilizations" - the first of these tensions is internal to Islam (extremism vs. moderation) and the second involves Islam's relations with the non-Islamic world (confrontation or cooperation).

Her intense, learned discussion of the concept of jihad, her careful explication of the Qur'an's true position on women's equality, and her helpful pointing out of the theological differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims, among other relevant and eloquent analyses, lead her to insist that "democracy and Islam are not only compatible but mutually sustaining." Within a chapter on the history of the relatively new country of Pakistan lies an autobiographical section in which the author details her terms in office as prime minister and the difficulties she was personally and purposefully handed by her adversaries.

This book is an eloquent plea, a passionate admonition, that reconciliation as she has outlined it must indeed occur. --Brad Hooper