Religious Fundamentalism in the Contemporary World: Critical Social and Political Issues

Today new and ever more pernicious forms of terrorist violence threaten the world. Because these new forms of violence are so often linked to religious radicalism, modern terrorism has challenged the secular ethics of contemporary civil society. There is a pressing need to understand modern religious movements that have added militancy and belligerence as fundamental elements of religious practice. Contributors to this volume painstakingly tackle the question of how to define the contours of current religious fundamentalism as they examine the private and public postures of fundamentalist rhetoric, the importance of its regional variants, and the damage it can do to regional and national education systems. Their analysis tracks trends in religious movements that aspire to radicalize, reform, and violently topple governments and nations, while highlighting the difference between fundamentalist interpretations and other longstanding juridical, political, and intellectual traditions.