Review of <em>The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State</em> by Mark Juergensmeyer

Author: José Casanova

December 1, 1993

In his review of Mark Juergensmeyer’s The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (University of California Press, 1993), José Casanova rejects some of the book’s conclusions while praising the evidence presented on religious movements. Casanova notes that Juergensmeyer’s assertion that rising religious movements are challenging secular movements is strongly supported by the evidence presented in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka) as well as the Middle East. However, Casanova criticizes Juergensmeyer for oversimplifying religious movements in the former Soviet Union, saying that they are more complex. Finally, Casanova disagrees with Juergensmeyer’s assertion that Western democracy will eventually be forced into an apocalyptic fight with religious movements and contends that both sides are overly generalized in the book. This review was published in the Winter 1993 issue of Political Science Quarterly.

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