I believe that The Colonial Present is an important, and geographical, contribution to public debate about the War on Terror (Kearns, 2005). One of the central claims of the book, reflected in its title, is that we live in a colonial presentethat in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States and, in Palestine, the state of Israel act in a colonial manner. The war on terror is the current form taken by the ideologies justifying colonialism. In the name of civilization, colonial powers have fought against what they have repeatedly configured as barbarism in its nationalist, communist and, now, Islamic forms. The Colonial Present is a passionate and critical contribution to our understanding of the dangerous times in which we, and our distant neighbours, now live. We might note territoriality, exceptionality and geographical imaginations as its three main geographical themes.