From Slogans To Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam Era (Religion and Politics)

Kent, Stephen A.

ISBN 10: 0815629486 / ISBN 13: 9780815629481

Published by Syracuse University Press, 2001

About this Item

This work covers the early 1970s, a period when the Vietnam War and student protests were on the wane as new religious groups grew in size. It maintains that the failure of political activism led former radicals to become involved with groups such as the Hare Krishnas and Scientology. Series: Religion and Politics. Num Pages: 224 pages, 17 photographs. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 3JJPL; HRCS; HRQM; JH; JPW. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 229 x 152 x 16. Weight in Grams: 376. . 2001. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780815629481

Bibliographic Details

• Title: From Slogans To Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam Era (Religion and Politics)
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0815629486
• ISBN 13: 9780815629481
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Certainly, religious strains were evident through postwar popular culture from the 1950s Beat generation into the 1960s drug counterculture, but the explosion of nontraditional religions during the early 1970s was unprecedented. This phenomenon took place in the United States (and at the edges of American-influenced Canadian society) among young people who had been committed to bringing about what they called "the revolution" but were converting to a wide variety of Eastern and Western mystical and spiritual movements. Stephen Kent maintains that the failure of political activism led former radicals to become involved with groups such as the Hare Krishnas, Scientology, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, the Jesus movement, and the Children of God. Drawing on scholarly literature, alternative press reportage, and personal narratives, Kent shows how numerous activists turned from psychedelia and political activism to guru worship and spiritual quest as a response to the failures of social protest and as a new means of achieving societal change.

About the Author

<b>Stephen A. Kent</b> is professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada. He has published articles in numerous journals including Journal of Religious History and<i> British Journal of Sociology.</i>