On September 11, 2001, like everyone, the author awoke to a different world. In addition to taking up a collection at his Rotary club meeting that morning, he decided he wanted to do more. What caused this tragedy? What motivated the terrorists? These questions sent him on a journey. Not simply a physical journey to the Middle East and beyond, but a journey of discovery. The Western world wrung its collective hands in response to a new survivalist fear of traveling following that fateful fall morning. Suicide bombers breathed their last in the West Bank. SARS contaminated the air. War ravaged Iraq. Or war liberated Iraq, depending on your perspective. In as lighthearted a way as was possible under the circumstances, the author sets out to explore these troubled hot spots and figure out why America continues to be sometimes loved and sometimes hated. Sometimes by the very same people.