Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: totalitarian political religions, crash industrialisation, anticlerical violence, Catholic Church, Northern Ireland, Holy See (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a dazzling display of erudition, British historian Burleigh completes his two-volume chronicle of the interaction between religion and politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the present. The first book, Earthly Powers (2006), took the story to World War I, concentrating on the battle for and against secularization in the 19th century, while this installment carries the story to the present. Though best known for his books on Germany, including the prize-winning The Third Reich (2001), Burleigh's remarkable breadth of knowledge is manifest in his trenchant analysis of the role of religion in a number of European countries and the Soviet Union. He thoroughly reviews totalitarian attacks on religion and its misuse by Nazis, Fascists and Communists. Burleigh's opinions are forceful, especially when he condemns a prevalent "fantasy view" of Ireland that is blind to the "gangsters of the Provisional IRA" who are responsible for "bullying, intimidating and killing others." He colorfully criticizes "politicians in Western democracies [who] treat high office as pigs regard their troughs." Burleigh also upbraids critics of Pius XII, claiming that the controversial pope actually did a good deal to save and shelter Jews during the Holocaust. Use of odd words such as "erastianism" and "soteriological" detract from what is otherwise a rewarding example of intellectual history. (Mar.)
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From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Mark Mazower

Perhaps in the United States, with its high rate of churchgoing, the importance of religion is obvious. But in Europe, the impact of faith on public life was, until recently, widely assumed to be in decline. Of course, episodes such as the Roman Catholic Church's alliance with Poland's Solidarity movement in the 1980s highlighted the oddity of thinking that religion was a medieval phenomenon, not a modern one. Yet for decades, theorists of progress predicted that the more societies modernized, the weaker the grip of religion would become: What lay at the end of the road was the inevitable triumph of secularism.

Quite rightly, Michael Burleigh wants none of this. His Sacred Causes -- a sprawling, uneven and irascible book -- argues that religion never went away. Not only did churches play a role in the resistance (and accommodation) to 20th-century totalitarianism of the Right and Left, but, in Burleigh's view, those ideologies were in fact political religions that borrowed their trappings, rhetoric, dogmatism and fervor from the church. There was, however, a key difference between religious leaders engaging in politics and political leaders demanding religion-like devotion. Christianity, Burleigh says, contributed to Europe's political culture by carving out a space beyond the power of the state. Stalin and Hitler, on the other hand, extended state power into previously private realms. Lethal, fake religions triumphed -- for a time -- over real, humane ones.

Burleigh defends the Catholic Church in particular. He claims its upper echelons, although inclined to authoritarianism, were more opposed to Hitler than people tend to think. There's no doubt where Burleigh's sympathies lie: Only when he comes to the liberation theology of Latin America, which views Jesus as a liberator of the oppressed, does his anti-Marxism temporarily trump his appreciation for the clergy. But this book is really about Europe. It is silent on political Hinduism in India, Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalism in Asia, evangelical missionaries in Africa and contemporary forms of Jewish nationalism in the Middle East. On Islam, it reproduces the apocalyptic slurs of post-9/11 punditry. While Burleigh does have plenty to say about the battle between religion and secularism on the Old Continent after 1945, little of it is positive. The Protestant churches -- full of their German hand-wringers and English do-gooders -- do not generally elicit from him the same understanding as the papacy, and in his account the sufferings of Orthodox Christianity under communism are counterbalanced by the fascist sympathies of the Romanian clergy. Northern Ireland is portrayed in the spirit of a plague on both houses.

One notices these things because Burleigh is nothing if not opinionated. He despises "sneering secularists" but is a considerable sneerer himself. Targets include "humanist radical eggheads," "tenured radicals" who take a "vampiric interest in female students," the "horde of bodgers and shysters" in the English construction trades and "dingy Irish theme pubs" with their "relentless, mindless gabbling." As the book moves on, jibes and bile clog the writing, and one has the sinking feeling of being cornered by the pub bore, ranting on about '60s swingers, the threat to European civilization, terrorists and trade unions -- pretty much everything and everyone except the pope, Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher. I would like to think that the old Burleigh, the fine historian who wrote some superb works on Nazism, is not gone. Maybe this lament for the disappearing "Christian Constitution of Britain" is really a tasteless spoof designed to show the reader where a certain kind of religious despair can leave you. Or perhaps it is simply what he thinks.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (February 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006058095X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060580957
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #538,679 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some unpleasant truths, March 12, 2007

By	Antonio Nunez (Bogotá, Colombia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is not as good as "Earthly Powers", volume I of a history of the interplay between religion and politics since the French Revolution. "Earthly Powers" takes us from that esteemed episode to World War I. "Sacred Causes" picks up in 1918 and into the not so distant future. As envisioned by Burleigh, in the future secular authorities in European cities will be able to keep order only by devolving authority to Muslin religious leaders who will police their own kind. That will be a fine paradox: irreligious democracy only subsisting through the cooperation of extremist theocratic religion.

In volume II Burleigh goes out of his way to be provocative. His purpose is to defend religion (mainly Catholicism and some versions of Protestantism) as a golden thread running through most of the last century, and to decry irreligion (or rather political religion) as the devil incarnate. His view of Nazism and Communism as two sides of the same coin (millenarist politics gone awry) is only offensive among former comrades. His principled defense of Pius XII is so learned and so elegant, and so contrary to current consensus, that it is sure to get him pilloried. His derision of hippy/New Age spirituality is thoroughly well deserved, but it won't help him with aging baby boomers. His withering view of the Irish is so extreme that it verges on slander. His criticism of multiculturalism as ethically bankrupt and politically useless is spot-on.

While I very much enjoyed the robust argumentation (and in fact agree with much of the diagnosis and prognosis), I don't think volume II is as good as volume I, because I think Burleigh stepped over the fine line that separates History from editorial opinion. The book could have done with less invectives and more grounded analysis. Coming after "The Third Reich" and "Earthly Powers", "Sacred Causes" is rather like "Godfather III", good but not great.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars patchy, but has its moments, February 27, 2007

By	Red Eyes - See all my reviews

Again, like his earlier works on the Nazis and the fascist mind, this book features the brilliance of Burleigh , and his remarkably broad sweep of knowledge and historical insight.

He effortlessly manages to draw together hugely diverse threads of human experience, ranging from a discussion of Dadaism, Bauhaus, the roots of early 20th Century "new age" cults in Germany, right up to observations on the Moroccan who murdered Theo Van Gogh.

The only let down with this book is ( in my view ) Burleigh's analysis of Islam as it clashes with modernity -- it's not that I don't agree with his conclusions ( I do agree with him ), but simply that whilst his analysis of fascism and early 20th Century European culture is consistently original and penetrating in its insights -- much of his critique of Islam reads a little like a Daily Mail/Daily Telegraph comment column, and is remarkably pedestrian and rather ordinary in comparison. Also, I have to say, many of his comments on Ireland and the Irish people seem far too sweeping, far too subjective for a man of Burleigh's usual insight and historical training, and are difficult to take seriously.

Besides these points then, this is still a commendable book in places. There are very few historians writing in the "popular" arena that have so much depth, wisdom, insight to offer, and such narrative mastery as Burleigh.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What was the 20th century all about?, June 8, 2007

By	Jeri Nevermind "loves to read" (Idaho) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Burleigh argues, in this rich, meaty book, that the 20th century was all about the clash between religion and the state.

The 20th century opened with a set of swaggering new philosophies that were going to create a heaven on earth. Nietzche, before he descended into gibbering madness, declared that "God was dead". He expected a New Man, freed of the old, niggling 10 commandments, to lead humanity to a bright new future. What the world got was Hitler and death camps.

Then there was fascism, led by Mussolini, whose first book was, "God Does Not Exist".

And then there was communism, most potent of all, which slaughtered some 100 million people while trying to create heaven on earth. The late Pope John Paul, who lived under both the Nazis and the communists, called the 20th century "a pile of bodies".

In this sweeping, beautifully written book, Burleigh performs like a magician, always pulling out just the right, telling anecdote.

In the early part of the century, violence against the clergy peaked. In Spain during the civil war, "nearly 7,000 clerics were murdered" (p 132"), while atrocity was piled on atrocity. In Mexico priests were hunted and shot and convents closed.

Yet the most bloodthirsty of all would be communism. The communists used everything they could to fight against religion--threats, persecutions, show trials, mass starvation, and the near total destruction of all religious clergy. "By 1938 eighty bishops had lost their lives, while thousands of clerics were sent to the Solovetsky labour camp set up in a former monastery on an island in the White Sea" (p 47.

What bitter irony, then, that many now believe that it was religion that pulled down the whole grotesque regime. "Although they were subjected to relentless assault from state-sponsored atheism, the Christian Churches remained the only licensed sanctuaries from the prevailing world of brutality and lies" (p 344). Solidarity, Pope John Paul, and Poland brought down communism.

Yet we may well face an even more troubling era. Europe is beset with problems of a very different nature. As its native populations dwindle to nothing a flood of Muslim immigrants is taking over Amsterdam, Paris and London. What was once a vital continent filled with a vibrant Christianity is now dying. Authors such as Dawkins assault the very idea of religion while immigrants swarm into the country. Statistics show a vast numbers of these new Europeans want, not to do away with religion as Dawkins suggests, but to impose Sharia law.