It captures their key beliefs, explores their backgrounds, assesses their thinking and evaluates their legacy. It explains the schools of thought named after them and clearly shows how they influence our everyday lives.

    Focusing on the similarities and differences in skills between former dictator Hafez al-Assad and his successor son, Bashar, Ajami explains how an irresistible force clashed with an immovable object: the regime versus people who conquered fear to challenge a despot of unspeakable cruelty.

    Author Mark Wilkerson interviewed Townshend himself and several of Townshend's friends and associates for this biography.