Throughout the last two decades, the modern dialogue movement has gained worldwide significance. The knowledge about its origins is, however, still very limited. This book presents a wide range of insights from eleven case studies into the early history of several important international interreligious/interfaith dialogue organizations that have shaped the modern development of interreligious dialogue from the late nineteenth century up to the present. Based on new archival research, they describe, on the one hand, how these actors put their ideals into practice and, on the other, how they faced many challenges as pioneers in the establishment of new interreligious/interfaith organizational structures. This book concludes with a comparison of those case studies, bringing to light new and broader historico-sociological understanding of the beginnings of international and multi-religious interreligious/interfaith dialogue organizations over more than one century. The World’s Parliament of Religions / 1893 The Religiöser Menschheitsbund / 1921 The World Congress of Faiths / 1933-1950 The Committee on the Church and the Jewish People of the World Council of Churches / 1961 The Temple of Understanding / 1968 The International Association for Religious Freedom / 1969 The World Conference on Religion and Peace / 1970 The Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions / 1989-1991 The Oxford International Interfaith Centre / 1993 The United Religions Initiative / 2000 The Universal Peace Federation / 2005 Based on these analyses, the authors identify three distinct groups with sometimes-conflicting interests that are shaping the movement: individual religious virtuosi, countercultural activists, and representatives of religious institutions. Published in cooperation with the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious & Intercultural Dialogue, Vienna.

When Orange County, California, filed for Chapter 9 protection on December 6, 1994, it became the largest municipality in United States history to declare bankruptcy. In the first comprehensive analysis of this momentous fiscal crisis, Mark Baldassare uncovers the many twists and turns from the dark days in December 1994 to the financial recovery of June 1996. Utilizing a wealth of primary materials from the county government and Merrill Lynch, as well as interviews with key officials and players in this drama, Mark Baldassare untangles the causes of this $1.64 billion fiasco. He finds three factors critical to understanding the bankruptcy: one, the political fragmentation of the numerous local governments in the area; two, the fiscal conservatism underlying voters' feelings about their tax dollars; three, the financial austerity in state government and in meeting rising state expenditures. Baldassare finds that these forces help to explain how a county known for its affluence and conservative politics could have allowed its cities' school, water, transportation, and sanitation agencies to be held hostage to this failed investment pool. Meticulously examining the events that led up to the bankruptcy, the local officials' response to the fiscal emergency, and the road to fiscal recovery—as well as the governmental reforms engendered by the crisis—When Government Fails is a dramatic and instructive economic morality tale. Eminently readable, it underlines the dangers inherent in a freewheeling bull economy and the imperatives of local and state governments to protect fiscal assets. As Baldassare shows, Orange County need not—and should not—happen again.