The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History

The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History
ISBN-10
0813530938
ISBN-13
9780813530932
Category
History
Pages
238
Language
English
Published
2002
Publisher
Rutgers University Press
Authors
Derek R. Peterson, Darren R. Walhof

Description

Is religion an obstacle to the values of modernity? Popular and scholarly opinion says that it is. In a world gripped in a clash of civilizations, religious absolutism seems to threaten the modern virtues of tolerance, reason, and freedom. This collection of historical essays argues that this popular view--religion versus modernity--is used by the politically powerful to construct the religious as irrational and antimodern. The authors study how nationalists, state officials, missionaries, and scholars in the West and in the colonized world defined and redefined the relationship between the political and the religious --From publisher's description.

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