Berkley Center

In this review article, Casanova considers the first volume of the Fundamentalism Project, the precision of the category of fundamentalism, and the implications for the study of religion and politics. Casanova ultimately argues that while fundmentalisms differ from one another in comparative contexts, they share enough of a family resemblance to justify the term fundamentalism in settings other than its home among American Protestants. Fundamentalism is distinct from concepts such as religious conservatism or orthodoxy in its selective attitude to tradition, its tense yet symbiotic relationship with modernity, and its overt militancy. Casanova encourages researchers to engage in further general theory-building that builds on the empirically rich case studies that ground the comprehensive volumes of the Fundamentalism Project. This article was published in volume 80 of The Catholic Historical Review.