Warner Todd Huston provides a good summary of the systematic effort by Islamists to block the publication of books relating to Islam with which they differ. What a disgrace to encounter an American academic leaping to the fore to assist these censors.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Random House, cowed by Islamist threats, “abruptly called off publication” of a new book about the sex life of Aisha, the child bride of the Prophet Muhammad, by author Sherry Jones. Ignominiously, as Huston writes:

it seems an American professor is the one responsible for starting the Islamofascist ball rolling on this one. In an effort to silence the publication of this book, Denise Spellberg, associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas, began to send warnings about the book to radical Islamists throughout the world. After this Professor, a fellow traveler of radical Islam, got done rounding up the many hatemongers in Muslim communities she was in touch with, and her agitators in turn got in touch with the publisher, Random House got cold feet. In fact, they became scared to death.