Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-268) and index.

On a cold November day in Amsterdam, an angry young Muslim man, the son of Moroccan immigrants, killed celebrated and controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, great-grandnephew of Vincent and iconic European provocateur, for making a movie that "blasphemed" Islam. The murder horrified quiet, complacent, prosperous Holland, a country that prides itself on being a bastion of tolerance, and sent shock waves across Europe and around the world. Ian Buruma returned to his native Netherlands to try to make sense of it all and to see what larger meaning should and shouldn't be drawn from this story. The result is a true-crime page-turner with the intellectual resonance we've come to expect from this well-regarded journalist and thinker: the exemplary tale of our age, the story of what happens when political Islam collides with the secular West and tolerance finds its limits.--From publisher description.