Review of Struggling to Surrender: Some Impressions of an American Convert to Islam

Halm is to be lauded, however, for correcting a predominant misconception about Shi'ism, fostered unfortunately by recent political developments in have found ample coverage in the western media. He correctly emphasizes overall quietist orientation of Twelver Shi'ism throughout history; Shi' revolutionary political ideology is very much a phenomenon of modern precipitated in large measure by reaction to western political maneuverings.
If Shi'a Islam were to be reissued in a revised form, incorporating emendations suggested above and improving upon the often less than f translation, it could serve as a fairly useful, easily digestible, "quickie" introduction to Shi'i Islam at the undergraduate level.