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The book reveals the nexus between religion and politics today and shows that we live in an interdependent world where one global civilization is emerging and where the world's peoples are continuing to coalesce around a series of values that contain potent Western overtones. Both Putin's Orthodox Russia and regions under the control of such Islamist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda resent and attempt, in a largely languishing effort, to frustrate this series of values. The book explains the current tension between the West and Russia and parts of the Muslim world and sheds light on the causes of such crises as the Syrian Civil War, Russia's aggression against Ukraine, and acts of terrorism such as 9/11 and the ISIS-inspired massacres in Paris. It shows that religion continues to affect global order and that knowledge of its effect on political identity and global governance should guide both government policy and scholarly analysis of contemporary history.
List of contents
Introduction.- Chapter I: Orthodox Civilization.- Chapter II: Islamic Civilization.- Chapter III: Western Civilization.- Chapter IV: Russia's Revolutions and the Advent of Communist Era.- Chapter V: The Resurgence of Western Values, 1945-2000s.- Chapter VI: Islamism's Revolution, 1990s-2015.- Chapter VII The Struggle: Current Scene.- Chapter VIII: Conclusion.
About the author
Dennis J. Dunn was a Ford Foundation fellow and visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies. He is the author of The Catholic Church and Russia: Popes, Patriarchs, Tsar and Commissars (2004) and of Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin: America’s Ambassadors to Moscow (1998).
Summary
The book reveals the nexus between religion and politics today and shows that we live in an interdependent world where one global civilization is emerging and where the world’s peoples are continuing to coalesce around a series of values that contain potent Western overtones. Both Putin’s Orthodox Russia and regions under the control of such Islamist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda resent and attempt, in a largely languishing effort, to frustrate this series of values. The book explains the current tension between the West and Russia and parts of the Muslim world and sheds light on the causes of such crises as the Syrian Civil War, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and acts of terrorism such as 9/11 and the ISIS-inspired massacres in Paris. It shows that religion continues to affect global order and that knowledge of its effect on political identity and global governance should guide both government policy and scholarly analysis of contemporary history.
