Karim-Aly S. Kassam believes that the so-called war on terror has hijacked international focus from more substantive issues such as conservation of the biological and cultural diversity that are essential to human survival. In trying to understand terror, Dr. Kassam and the contributors to this work seek to broaden public discourse on the perception of terror. Among his many publications, Dr. Kassam has co-edited Canada and September 11: Impact and Response. Dr. Kassam currently holds the post of International Associate Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies at Cornell University.

• Introduction: Why Try to Understand Terror?; Terror & Its Boundaries; How Canada Confronts Terrorism: Canadian Responses to 9/11 in Historical & Comparative Context; Accounting for Disaster: The Quest for "Closure" After Aerial Mass Murder -- The Downing of Air India Flight in Comparative Perspective; The Word "Terrorism" & Its Impact on Public Consciousness; Groping in the Dark: How the Media, Absent a Frame of Reference, Fumbled the Danish Cartoon Controversy; The Terrorist "Other": The Fundamentalist & the Islamist; Maintaining Environmental Priorities in the Age of Terrorism; Responding to the Terror of Genocide: Learning from the Rwandan Genocide of 1994; Psycho-dynamics of Terror: A Perspective on the Evolution of Western Civilization; Conclusion: "The Global War on Terror" Overdetermined as a Clash of Civilizations; Index.