The attacks of September 11th, followed by U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, have brought greater attention to the simmering conflict between Islam and the West--a conflict most brutally played out historically during the Crusades. The series of holy wars for control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land stretched over centuries--from 1096…

After defining three broad positions adopted in the long-standing French polemic about secularism and education, the author describes how traditional boundaries between conflicting positions have been blurred by interventionist policies in education as well as by the evolution of Catholic attitudes. He illustrates his comments from recent…