Does modernity make religion politically irrelevant? Conventional scholarly and popular wisdom says that it does. The prevailing view assumes that the onset of western modernity--characterized by the rise of nationalism, the dominance of capitalism, and the emergence of powerful state institutions--favors secularism and relegates religion to the purely private realm. This collection of essays on nationalism and religion in Europe and Asia challenges that view. Contributors show that religion and politics are mixed together in complex and vitally important ways not just in the East, but in the West as well. The book focuses on four societies: India, Japan, Britain, and the Netherlands. It shows that religion and nationalism in these societies combined to produce such notions as the nation being chosen for a historical task (imperialism, for example), the possibility of national revival, and political leadership as a form of salvation. The volume also examines the qualities of religious discourse and practice that can be used for nationalist purposes, paying special attention to how religion can help to give meaning to sacrifice in national struggle. The book's comparative approach underscores that developments in colonizing and colonized countries, too often considered separately, are subtly interrelated. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Benedict R. Anderson, Talal Asad, Susan Bayly, Partha Chatterjee, Frans Groot, Harry Harootunian, Hugh McLeod, Barbara Metcalf, and Peter van Rooden.

This collection of all new essays will explore the complex and unstable articulations of race and religion that have helped to produce "Black," "White," "Creole," "Indian," "Asian," and other racialized identities and communities in the Americas. Drawing on original research in a range of disciplines, the authors will investigate: 1) how the intertwined categories of race and religion have defined, and been defined by, global relations of power and inequality; 2) how racial and religious identities shape the everyday lives of individuals and communities; and 3) how racialized and marginalized communities use religion and religious discourses to contest the persistent power of racism in societies structured by inequality. Taken together, these essays will define a new standard of critical conversation on race and religion throughout the Americas.

Traces the decline of Christianity in America since the 1950s, posing controversial arguments about the role of heresy in the nation's downfall while calling for a revival of traditional Christian practices.

This lively survey ranges across several centuries of change in the ways historians have thought and written about religion in America. In particular, John F. Wilson is concerned with how historians have perceived religion's relationship to the political organization of our country. He begins by establishing the genesis of religion as a specialized area of American history in the nineteenth century, and then discusses religious history's development through the early 1970s. Along the way he considers topics ranging from the "long shadow" the Puritans have cast over our comprehension of religion in American history to the ascendancy of such institutions as the University of Chicago as systematizing forces in religious scholarship. Wilson then discusses how scholars, since the early 1970s, have sought to ground their accounts of American religious trends and events in ways that either avoid or transcend references to Puritanism. The rise of comparative religious histories, Wilson notes, has been the welcome outcome. Moving into the present, Wilson explores a range of behaviors, if not beliefs, that might be understood as religious aspects of American life, and looks at how the spiritual or religious dimensions of American cultural life have been expressed in gnosticism, the mass media, and consumerism. One commentator, Wilson notes, suggested that there are no longer any religions as such in America today, but only religious "brands." Wilson himself sees America as a place where there is room for Old World traditions and new spiritual initiatives, a modern nation remarkably hospitable to ancient preoccupations.

Fea offers an even-handed primer on whether America was founded to be a Christian nation, as many evangelicals assert, or a secular state, as others contend. He approaches the title's question from a historical perspective, helping readers see past the emotional rhetoric of today to the recorded facts of our past. Readers on both sides of the issues will appreciate that this book occupies a middle ground, noting the good points and the less-nuanced arguments of both sides and leading us always back to the primary sources that our shared American history comprises.

Halliday (international relations, London School of Economic) presents 11 of his own essays which explore the intertwined nature of religion and politics in the Middle East. The formation of culture, the impact of externalities, and the possibilities of discussions between cultures are the broad themes of the essays. Particular topics include the formation of nationalism in Yemen; the treatment of the Middle East by liberal theory; and case studies of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The provocative and authoritative history of the origins of Christian America in the New Deal era We're often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s. To fight the "slavery" of FDR's New Deal, businessmen enlisted religious activists in a campaign for "freedom under God" that culminated in the election of their ally Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. The new president revolutionized the role of religion in American politics. He inaugurated new traditions like the National Prayer Breakfast, as Congress added the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and made "In God We Trust" the country's first official motto. Church membership soon soared to an all-time high of 69 percent. Americans across the religious and political spectrum agreed that their country was "one nation under God." Provocative and authoritative, One Nation Under God reveals how an unholy alliance of money, religion, and politics created a false origin story that continues to define and divide American politics to this day.