Will our democracy be defined by dominance? Or by the higher values we constantly espouse? This is the central question facing us in the wake of 9/11, and Stephen Zunes shows the prospects are not promising.
It is a clear, concise, well-documented (30 pages of endnotes) and convincing exposition of U.S. foreign policy, particularly vis-a-vis the Middle East. It is not a difficult read at all. I think anyone of third-year high school (and certainly college) age or older would do fine with this book. You don't need a whole lot of background knowledge on the subject in order to understand what Zunes writes.
If you want to know "why they hate us" (although Zunes points out that most people abroad don't hate Americans per se; they hate the policies of our government), this is the book to read. I highly recommend it.
An important feature of this book is that most of its chapters are self-contained in the sense that they can be profitably read separately, like a handbook, without reading the whole book. For example, you can go to the chapter on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and get an excellent 65-page up-to-date analysis of that subject.