Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma

Ian Buruma is a very engaging and perceptive writer. You don't have to agree with the whole of his cultural analysis to enjoy reading his work.

Here's an old book review of Murder in Amsterdam published in Touchstone. It's about the roots of Islamic extremism in Europe among second-generation Muslim immigrants. Here's an another review published in First Things that I wrote while living in Japan, one of Buruma's favorite haunts. This book, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan, compares each nation's efforts to expiate guilt--or erase the historical record--in the wake of the Second World War.