Conventional wisdom has it that the Middle East crisis is the product of a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. The Fall of the House of Bush frames that conflict as part of an entirely different paradigm -- namely, the ongoing war between faith and reason, between fundamentalisms (Islamic, Jewish, Christian) and the modern, scientific, post-Enlightenment world. It tells the story of how radical, neoconservative ideologues secretly formed an alliance with the Christian Right in the Bush White House -- and how, driven by delusional idealism and ideological and religious zeal, they waged unilateral and pre-emptive war in the Middle East as well as a domestic war against reason, science and civil liberties.

Extending the investigative reach deployed so devastatingly in House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger's brilliant exposé shows the real intentions -- and likely outcomes -- of the Bush administration's true playbook.