Not since the Crusades of the Middle Ages has Islam evoked the degree of fear, hostility, and ethnic and religious stereotyping that is evident throughout Western culture today. As conflicts continue to proliferate around the globe, the perception of a colossal, unyielding, and unavoidable struggle between Islam and the West has intensified. These numerous conflicts, both actual and ideological, have revived fears of an ongoing "clash of civilizations"—an intractable and irreconcilable conflict of values between Western cultures and an Islam that is portrayed as hostile and alien. The New Crusades takes head-on the idea of an emergent "Cold War" between Islam and the West. It explores the historical, political, and institutional forces that have raised the specter of a threatening and monolithic Muslim enemy and provides a nuanced critique of much received wisdom on the topic, particularly the "clash of civilizations" theory. Bringing together twelve of the most influential thinkers in Middle Eastern and religious studies—including Edward Said, Roy Mottahedeh, and Fatema Mernissi—this timely collection confronts such depictions of the Arab-Islamic world, showing their inner workings and how they both empower and shield from scrutiny Islamic radicals who operate from similar paradigms of inevitable and absolute conflict.

The period between the mid-1880s and the First World War was the high point of the navalist movement - but the idea of 'navalism' took many forms, and meant different problems and different solutions to various groups within British society and the British government. New Crusade examines one form of the British navalist movement: directed navalism. As opposed to the broader cultural conception of British naval power, directed navalism consisted of a cooperative, symbiotic working relationship between three elite and self-selecting groups: serving naval officers (professionals), naval correspondents and editors working for national newspapers and periodicals (press), and members of Parliament who dealt with naval issues (politicians). Directed navalism meant agitation for a specific, achievable goal. It was the bedrock upon which the more popular and ultimately more successful cultural navalism of fleet reviews and music halls was built. Though directed navalism collapsed before the First World War, it was extraordinarily successful in its time, and it was a necessary precursor for the creation of a national discourse in which cultural navalism could thrive. Its rise and fall is the story of this book.

'A nuanced and sophisticated analysis... Exhilarating' Sunday Telegraph Nine hundred years ago, one of the most controversial episodes in Christian history was initiated. The Pope stated that, in spite of the apparently pacifist message of the New Testament, God actually wanted European knights to wage a fierce and bloody war against Islam and recapture Jerusalem. Thus was the First Crusade born. Focusing on the characters that drove this extraordinary campaign, this fascinating period of history is recreated through awe-inspiring and often barbaric tales of bold adventure while at the same time providing significant insights into early medieval society, morality and mentality. The First Crusade marked a watershed in relations between Islam and the West, a conflict that set these two world religions on a course towards deep-seated animosity and enduring enmity. The chilling reverberations of this earth-shattering clash still echo in the world today. '[Asbridge] balances persuasive analysis with a flair for conveying with dramatic power the crusaders' plight' Financial Times

"Since his debut in Detective Comics #27, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop Art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim ninja of the urban night. Yet, despite these endless transformations, he remains one of our most revered cultural icons. [In this book, Weldon provides a] look at the cultural history of Batman and his fandom"--Amazon.com.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.

When is a war a holy crusade? And when does theology cause Christians to condemn violence? In American Crusade, Benjamin Wetzel argues that the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I shared a cultural meaning for white Protestant ministers in the United States, who considered each conflict to be a modern-day crusade. American Crusade examines the "holy war" mentality prevalent between 1860 and 1920, juxtaposing mainline Protestant support for these wars with more hesitant religious voices: Catholics, German-speaking Lutherans, and African American Methodists. The specific theologies and social locations of these more marginal denominations made their ministries highly critical of the crusading mentality. Religious understandings of the nation, both in support of and opposed to armed conflict, played a major role in such ideological contestation. Wetzel's book questions traditional periodizations and suggests that these three wars should be understood as a unit. Grappling with the views of America's religious leaders, supplemented by those of ordinary people, American Crusade provides a fresh way of understanding the three major American wars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.