How does religious fundamentalism operate in modern global society? This two-volume series analyses the dynamics of fundamentalism and its relationship to the modern state, the public sphere and globalisation. This second volume explores the links between fundamentalism and communication: the rise of fundamentalism as a mass media phenomenon, fundamentalist communication in the public sphere, national cultural identities and the rise of a 'global society'. Expert scholars in the field address specific contemporary and past fundamentalist movements that have emerged from within mainstream Islam, Christianity, Baha'ism, Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism. This is an important study of an increasingly significant and virulent aspect of modern society, and will be essential reading in the fields of Religion, Politics, Communications and Media Studies.

This third volume of the Fundamentalism Project provides a systematic overview of the advances made by antisecular religious movements over the past twenty-five years. The distinguished contributors to this volume - economists, political scientists, religious historians, social anthropologists, and sociologists - focus on the impact these movements have had on national economies, political parties, constitutional issues, and international relations on five continents and within the religious traditions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. Do fundamentalisms tend toward political activism, and how successful have they been in remaking political structures? To answer this question and others, the contributors discuss the anti-abortion movement in the U.S., the Islamic war of resistance in Afghanistan, and Shiite jurisprudence in Iran. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby conclude the volume with a synthetic statement of fundamentalist impact on polities, economies, and state security. The Fundamentalism Project is a monumental undertaking by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that involves an international group of scholars. Taken together, the volumes in this series will become a standard reference for educators and policy analysts for years to come.

How does religious fundamentalism operate in modern global society? This two-volume series analyses the dynamics of fundamentalism and its relationship to the modern state, the public sphere and globalisation. In this first volume, fundamentalism is approached from the perspective of state and community building, ideology and practices within the context of global society, and the ways in which fundamentalism is intertwined with issues of politics, state power, democracy, globalization, political activism and political ideology. Expert scholars in the field address specific contemporary and past fundamentalist movements that have emerged from within mainstream Islam, Christianity, Baha'ism, Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism. This is an important study of an increasingly significant and controversial aspect of modern society, and will be essential reading in the fields of Religion, Politics and International Relations.

"This book presents an innovative psychological framework for understanding religious fundamentalism. Blending extensive research and incisive analysis, the highly regarded authors distinguish fundamentalist traditions from other faith-based groups and illuminate the thinking and behavior of believers. Offering respectful, historically informed examinations of several major fundamentalist groups, the volume challenges many commonly held stereotypes. In the process, it stakes out important new terrain for the psychological study of religion" -- BOOK JACKET.

In this groundbreaking work, award-winning Brazilian journalist Azevedo presents a frank and objective account of how the label of fundamentalism can be applied to religious and secular 'faiths' alike. In the 21st century, passionate and emotional attachment to a single point of view, and the rejection of all others, has become one of the main social, political, and religious issues, leading to conflicts around the globe.

The relationship between Protestant fundamentalists and mass culture is often considered complex and ambiguous. Selling the Old-Time Religion examines this relationship and shows how the first generation of fundamentalists embraced the modern business and entertainment techniques of marketing, advertising, drama, film, radio, and publishing to spread the gospel. Selectively, and with more sophistication than has been accorded to them, fundamentalists adapted to the consumer society and popular culture with the accompanying values of materialism and immediate gratification, despite the seeming conflict between these values and certain tenets of their religious beliefs. Selling the Old-Time Religion is written by a fundamentalist who is based at the country's foremost fundamentalist institute of higher education. It is a candid and remarkable piece of scholarship that reveals from the inside the movement's first encounters with some of the media methods it now wields with well-documented virtuosity. Carl Abrams draws extensively on sermons, popular journals, and educational archives to reveal the attitudes and actions of the fundamental leadership and the laity. Abrams discusses how fundamentalists' outlook toward contemporary trends and events shifted from aloofness to engagement as they moved inward from the margins of American culture and began to weigh in on the day's issues--from jazz to "flappers"--in large numbers. Fundamentalists in the 1920s and 1930s "were willing to compromise certain traditions that defined the movement, such as premillennialism, holiness, and defense of the faith," Abrams concludes, "but their flexibility with forms of consumption and pleasure strengthened their evangelistic emphasis, perhaps the movement's core." Contrary to the myth of fundamentalism's demise after the Scopes Trial, the movement's uses of mass culture help explain their success in the decades following it. In the end fundamentalists imitated mass culture not to be like the world but to evangelize it.

Conntributors to this volume tackle the question of how to define the contours of current religious fundamentalism, examining the private & public postures of fundamentalist rhetoric, the importance of its regional variants, & the damage it can do to regional & national educaton systems.