The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) [Paperback]

Mark Juergensmeyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0520086511 | ISBN-13: 978-0520086517

Will the religious confrontations with secular authorities around the world lead to a new Cold War? Mark Juergensmeyer paints a provocative picture of the new religious revolutionaries altering the political landscape in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Impassioned Muslim leaders in Egypt, Palestine, and Algeria, political rabbis in Israel, militant Sikhs in India, and triumphant Catholic clergy in Eastern Europe are all players in Juergensmeyer's study of the explosive growth of religious movements that decisively reject Western ideas of secular nationalism.
Juergensmeyer revises our notions of religious revolutions. Instead of viewing religious nationalists as wild-eyed, anti-American fanatics, he reveals them as modern activists pursuing a legitimate form of politics. He explores the positive role religion can play in the political life of modern nations, even while acknowledging some religious nationalists' proclivity to violence and disregard of Western notions of human rights. Finally, he situates the growth of religious nationalism in the context of the political malaise of the modern West. Noting that the synthesis of traditional religion and secular nationalism yields a religious version of the modern nation-state, Juergensmeyer claims that such a political entity could conceivably embrace democratic values and human rights.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A sensitive survey of religious nationalism around the world, with some gentle advice for Americans bewildered by all the uproar. The aim of religious nationalists of every stripe--Buddhists in Mongolia, Muslims in Palestine, Sikhs in India--is invariably the same, says Juergensmeyer (Religion and Political Science/University of Hawaii): to dismantle the secular state, perceived as morally and spiritually bankrupt, and replace it with a government founded on religious principles. Juergensmeyer rejects calling this trend ``fundamentalist''--mostly because of the word's pejorative connotations--and instead labels it ``anti-modernist.'' Perhaps postmodernist would be more accurate, for the movement is growing by leaps and bounds. Instead of ``the emergence of mini-Americas all over the world,'' as anticipated just a generation go, the new world order seems to consist of various religious groups warring for theocratic states. The foremost example, of course, is Iran. But Juergensmeyer covers a number of other tinder spots, such as Egypt, where an Islamic revolution may be imminent; Israel, under pressure from the ultraright; India, where Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims clash with each other and the secular federal government; and Sri Lanka, where Buddhist extremists slaughter villagers and in turn are ruthlessly suppressed. Juergensmeyer outlines the threats (violence, destruction of human rights) and blessings (a restoration of morality to public office) of the phenomenon. He concludes that religious nationalism will continue to expand, urges cooperation rather than confrontation on the part of American policy-makers, and holds out the possibility of a happy synthesis in which ``essential elements of democracy will be conveyed in the vessels of new religious states.'' Valuable for its global perspective and its ability to see things from the viewpoint of the religious nationalists themselves; as such, must reading for the Clinton Administration. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Mark Juergensmeyer's "The New Cold War? makes the history and issues surrounding world-wide fundamentalism accessible to a general audience." --Mary Warner Marien, "Christian Science Monitor

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Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (February 23, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520086511
• ISBN-13: 978-0520086517
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #920,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MARK JUERGENSMEYER is director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, professor of sociology, and affiliate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an expert on religious violence, conflict resolution and South Asian religion and politics, and has published more than two hundred articles and twenty books. His latest book, Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State (University of California Press, 2008) covers the rise of religious activism from al Qaeda to the Christian militia, and explores its confrontation with secular modernity. It is based on his earlier book, The New Cold War? named by the New York Times as one of the notable books of the year. His widely-read Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (University of California Press, revised edition 2003), is based on interviews with religious activists around the world--including individuals convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, leaders of Hamas, and abortion clinic bombers in the United States--and was listed by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as one of the best nonfiction books of the year. His book on Gandhian conflict resolution has been reprinted as Gandhi's Way (University of California Press, Updated Edition, 2005), and was selected as Community Book of the Year at the University of California, Davis. He has edited The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions (Oxford University Press 2006) and Religion in Global Civil Society (Oxford University Press 2005). He is co-editing two encyclopedias--one in global religion and the other in global studies--and is co-editing the Princeton Reader in Religion and Violence. His 2006 Stafford Little Lectures at Princeton University, God and War, will also be published by Princeton University Press.
JUERGENSMEYER has received research fellowships from the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is the 2003 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for contributions to the study of religion, and is the 2004 recipient of the Silver Award of the Queen Sofia Center for the Study of Violence in Spain. He received Honorary Doctorates from Lehigh University in 2004 and Roskilde University in Denmark in 2009. He has also received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006, and the Unitas Distinguished Alumnus Award from Union Theological Seminary, New York City, in 2007. He was elected president of the American Academy of Religion, and chairs the working group on Religion and International Affairs for the national Social Science Research Council. Since the events of September 11 he has been a frequent commentator in the news media, including CNN, NBC, CBS, BBC, NPR, Fox News, ABC's Politically Incorrect, and CNBC's Dennis Miller Show.

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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Discussion!, March 11, 1999

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grey1066 (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) (Hardcover)

Juergensmeyer is an authority on religious violence. This book presents his theory that religious nationalism, far from having died out as many people believd it would, is still a very potent force in world politics. He also details an excellent theory of violent religious groups seeing themselves as engaged in a "Cosmic War" of good against evil, which elevates their struggle from the merely poltical to the otherworldly. An exceptional book from a knowledgeable scholar.

13 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The New Cold War?, July 16, 2001

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Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) (Paperback)

The New Cold War: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State

Juergensmeyer, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, means by "religious nationalism" what others call fundamentalism; and, as his title suggests, he sees similarities between the old Marxism-Leninism challenge to the Western order and this new one. In both cases, the confrontation is "global in its scope, binary in its opposition, occasionally violent, and essentially a difference of ideologies." Of the many religious nationalisms, the Islamic one stands out by virtue of its extent and the depth of its hold.

While Juergensmeyer holds that secular Westerners underestimate this threat to their way of life, he also believes that "a grudging respect" might develop between the two sides over time. He then goes further and claims that "there may be some aspects of the religious nationalists' agenda that we cannot only live with but also admire." Key to our all getting along, he states is for secular Westerners to change our attitude and respect "at least some aspects of their positions."

In other words, Juergensmeyer first identifies the fundamentalists as the new enemy, then he goes on to propose at least a partial capitulation to them. In short, if fundamentalists present us with a new ideological battle, the academy is offering up the same old advice of appeasement.

Middle East Quarterly, September, 1994