The United States' mercurial foreign policies toward the Muslim world—including actions taken against Islamic countries who have attempted to challenge the United States' regional dominance; and alliances with Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia—are expertly examined in this incisive treatise. Islamic revivalism, the emergence of a highly political Islamic population, the rise of terrorism, and other recent socio-political changes are also thoroughly discussed.

How the US has reconfigured its policy towards the radical and the conservative group of Muslim countries and how its new mission against terrorism has affected international relations, particularly US-Indian relations, is the central focus of the study.

Chintamani Mahapatra is currently Professor of American Studies and Chairman of the Centre for Canadian, US & Latin American Studies at School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Prof. Mahapatra was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Delaware, USA, Commonwealth Scholar at the University of London, Foreign Policy Fellow at University of Maryland, USA, Salzburg Seminar Fellow in Austria and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Defence Studies Centre, Canberra.

He frequently gives lectures at Society for International Law and Diplomacy, National Defence College, Army War College, College of Naval Warfare, and various Academic Staff Colleges in India. He has authored three books, edited one and has contributed chapters to above twenty edited volumes and has published above fifty articles in reputed national and international journals.