Prof Max Farrar, a cultural sociologist, is the head of community partnerships and volunteering and professor for community engagement at Leeds Metropolitan University. An adviser to several boards and organisations on the issue of race, Professor Farrar has previously lectured in sociology and written research papers on the subject. He is the author of a book about Chapeltown in Leeds, The Struggle for ‘Community’ in a British Multi-Ethnic Inner-City Area ( Edwin Mellen Press, 2002 ). He is also co-author of Teaching Race in the Social Sciences. He has worked in adult and community education, at a community Law Centre, for a ‘race’ think-tank and as a freelance writer and photographer. His life-long interest, both as a scholar and as an activist, is in the movements for social justice emanating from the multi-cultural inner cities of the UK. His current research focuses on the rise of Islamism.