In Islamophobia, Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg argue that political cartoons are a powerful and provocative medium for the perpetuation of unexamined stereotypes about Muslims. The book begins by discussing the deadly riots sparked by depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, depictions that are not reproduced here.

The focus on the way imagery both reveals and perpetuates unexamined anti-Muslim attitudes places this work in the trajectory of Edward Said's Orientalism, Melani McAlister's Epic Encounters, and Jack Shaheen's Reel Bad Arabs. The authors, along with a host of other recent writers, advocate the neologism “Islamophobia,” a term they define as a largely unexamined “social anxiety toward Islam and Muslim cultures” (5). They assert that creating such a category can serve much as the terms “anti-Semitism,” “sexism,” and “racism” have to help people recognize bias and root it out (11). Islamophobia is not limited to the political left or right, the authors contend: those on the right may see the United States as a Christian nation that should not fully embrace others, whereas those on the left may see it as a secular polity that should not welcome public expressions of religion. Both sides can feel threatened because of their perception that differences between Americans and Muslims are irreconcilable.

The opening chapter sets up some of the running themes to be found in contemporary cartoons. In the remaining chapters, the authors show and analyze several dozen political cartoons. Rather than focusing on the most obvious messages of the cartoons, they seek to uncover what is unconsciously conveyed.

This methodology presents a few challenges. First, it has a tendency to result in some of the least charitable readings possible. For example, in one cartoon, a puny and insignificant-looking figure labeled “Osama” lassoes a minaret and tries to drag away an enormous mosque labeled “Islam,” under the caption “Another attempted hijacking.” Perhaps the artist, Ben Sargent, is trying to communicate that bin Laden is clearly unrepresentative of the religious tradition ordinarily referred to as Islam. Rather than acknowledging the artist for advancing an idea with which they likely agree, the authors instead attack him for presenting Islam monolithically, in the form of one big mosque, making it easier “for many Americans to accept the portrayed singularity of the religion and the uniformity of those who adhere to it” (54–55). This interpretation is especially difficult to accept given that the methodology does not include ways of determining readers' actual reactions to the cartoons.

A second concern is that the criticism of the media occasionally goes too far. For example, the authors employ an interview with the first Muslim member of the United States Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), as evidence of rampant Islamophobia. But they fail to mention, either in the text or in a footnote, that the “anchor” who uttered, “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies” (144) was hardly a news anchor but rather conservative talk show host Glenn Beck. It is difficult to know whether ordinary citizens can tell the difference between an anchor and a conservative commentator — though this reviewer tends to think they can. Beck's comment proved so controversial that, barring further evidence to the contrary, it is difficult to support the contention that it represented an attitude most Americans found acceptable.

As a solution, the authors suggest that cartoonists begin depicting Muslims as “Americans acting as Americans” (149) rather than, for example, as symbols of terrorism or the oppression of women. The authors recognize the difficulty of such a task if political cartoonists are to continue to pack pithy messages of political import into one frame day after day, but they helpfully conclude the book with a few examples of cartoons that meet this standard. This solution is far and away superior to the authors' implication that because “at least nine European nations today outlaw the public denial of the Holocaust or the diminishment of its actuality” (145), perhaps this is another case in which free speech should be chilled to avoid offense. The authors are quick to point out that just a few extremists turned the Danish cartoon riots deadly. It should follow that these few extremists should not be allowed to unduly influence the application of the First Amendment.

The conclusion encourages focus on Muslims' and Christians' commonalities rather than their differences. The desire to combat Samuel Huntington's “clash of civilizations” thesis is laudable, but it may be as counterproductive to essentialize similarities as it is to essentialize differences. For an excellent recent piece of scholarship on how differences shift over time, see Ussama Makdisi's Artillery of Heaven, a book that undermines the clash of civilizations thesis without replacing the mythology of essential differences with one of essential similarities.

Islamophobia is geared toward a general audience, and it certainly is well-packaged to start conversations in that arena. It is also short, entertaining, accessible, and reasonably priced, and could easily be used in an undergraduate classroom to prompt students to be more critical of media imagery.