Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World

After the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, religious fundamentalism has dominated public debate as never before. Policymakers, educators, and the general public all want to know: Why do fundamentalist movements turn violent? Are fundamentalisms a global threat to human rights, security, and democratic forms of government? What is the future of fundamentalism?

To answer questions like these, Strong Religion draws on the results of the Fundamentalism Project, a decade-long interdisciplinary study of antimodernist, antisecular militant religious movements on five continents and within seven world religious traditions. The authors of this study analyze the various social structures, cultural contexts, and political environments in which fundamentalist movements have emerged around the world, from the Islamic Hamas and Hizbullah to the Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries of Northern Ireland, and from the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition of the United States to the Sikh radicals and Hindu nationalists of India. Offering a vividly detailed portrait of the cultures that nourish such movements, Strong Religion opens a much-needed window onto different modes of fundamentalism and identifies the kind of historical events that can trigger them.

Gabriel A. Almond is a professor emeritus of political science at Stanford University and the author of numerous works, including Progress and Its Discontents.

R. Scott Appleby is a professor of history and the John M. Regan, Jr., director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of, among other books, Religious Fundamentalisms and Global Conflict.

Emmanuel Sivan is a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of a number of books, including Interpretations of Islam and Radical Islam.