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In this book, Noel D. Johnson and Mark Koyama tackle the question: how does religious liberty develop?
List of contents
1. Toleration, persecution, and state capacity; Part I. Conditional Toleration: 2 Religion and the state in the premodern world; 3. Why do states persecute?; 4. Jewish communities, conditional toleration, and rent-seeking; 5. Climatic shocks and persecutions; 6. The shock of the Black Death; Part II. The Origins of Religious Freedom: 7. State building and the reformation; 8. The inquisition and the establishment of religious homogeneity in Spain; 9. From confessionalization to toleration and then to religious liberty; 10. From persecution to emancipation; Part III. Implications of Greater Religious Liberty: 11. The persecution of witchcraft; 12. Religious minorities and economic growth; 13. The emergence of modern states, religious freedom, and modern economic growth; 14. Applying our argument to the rest of the world; 15. Modern states, liberalism, and religious freedom; 16. Conclusions.
About the author
Noel D. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Virginia and a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center.Mark Koyama is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Virginia and a Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center. He was a 2017–2018 National Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
Summary
The emergence of religious liberty in the West is one of the most important developments in modern history. This book treats the subject in an integrative way, borrowing tools from economics, history, and political science. Researchers in fields across the humanities and social sciences will find it a valuable resource.
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Advance praise: 'This analysis of the historical process underlying the modern state formation is a fantastic scholarly accomplishment. The implications for the present, in terms of the risks associated to the loss of the core liberal values of modern western states, will not be lost to the careful reader.' Alberto Bisin, New York University
