The Sayyid Qutb Reader Selected Writings on Politics, Religion, and Society Edited by Albert J. Bergesen Routledge, 2008 0415954258 (paperback; $34.95) 041595424X (hardback; $135.00) Preface It has been said that perhaps no writer has occupied so central a place within the universe of political Islam in the second half of the twentieth century as Egypt's Sayyid Qutb, and if one wants to understand the mind of radical Muslims, one needs to know what they read, or have read, and they read Sayyid Qutb. In general, his work has been divided into three periods. The earliest (1920-1947) centers on more literary...