Description:
This volume explores the relationship between religion and politics. It brings a varied sample of richly detailed comparative and case studies together with a set of analytical paradigms in an integrated framework. It is a major statement on a timely subject, and a plea for the acknowledgment of normative pluralism as firmly rooted in the history of religion. The editor shows that the fact of political diversity in the history of world religions compels the acceptance of pluralism as a normative principle.
Brief description: Saïd Amir Arjomand is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. He is the author and editor of many books, including Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age and (with Nathan J. Brown) The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran, both also published by SUNY Press.
Review Quotes:
"The only other book that deals with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim fundamentalism is the book by Bruce Lawrence. It does not have the range of Arjomand's book." -- Hamid Algar, University of California, Berkeley
"In this book, Said Amir Arjomand has brought together a number of brilliant essays, each addressing a particular aspect of that beguiling force of attraction that relentlessly keeps religion and politics in close proximity--in a wavering space where the sacred and the violent vie for power with implacable ferocity." -- Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University