Mark Juergensmeyer Bücher

Based on the author's thirty years of fieldwork interviewing activists involved in religious-related terrorist movements around the world, this book explains why desperate social conflict and personal fears lead to extremes of both religion and war, and why invariably God is thought to be engaged in battle. Virtually every religious tradition leaves behind it a bloody trail of stories, legends, and images of war, and most wars call upon the divine for blessings in battle. This book probes the remarkably similar alternative realities that are created in the human imagination by both religious ideas and images of war in response to crises both personal and social.

Why has the turn of the twenty-first century been rocked by a new religious rebellion? From al Qaeda to Christian militias to insurgents in Iraq, a strident new religious activism has seized the imaginations of political rebels around the world. Building on his groundbreaking book, The New Cold War?: Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, Mark Juergensmeyer here provides an up-to-date road map through this complex new religious terrain. Basing his discussion on interviews with militant activists and case studies of rebellious movements, Juergensmeyer puts a human face on conflicts that have become increasingly abstract. He revises our notions of religious revolution and offers positive proposals for responding to religious activism in ways that will diminish the violence and lead to an accommodation between radical religion and the secular world.

Beneath the histories of religious traditions--from biblical wars to crusading ventures and great acts of martyrdom--violence has lurked as a shadowy presence. Images of death have never been far from the heart of religion's power to stir the imagination. In this wide-ranging and erudite book, Mark Juergensmeyer asks one of the most important and perplexing questions of our age: Why do religious people commit violent acts in the name of their god, taking the lives of innocent victims and terrorizing entire populations? This, the first comparative study of religious terrorism, explores incidents such as the World Trade Center explosion, Hamas suicide bombings, the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack, and the killing of abortion clinic doctors in the United States. Incorporating personal interviews with World Trade Center bomber Mahmud Abouhalima, Christian Right activist Mike Bray, Hamas leaders Sheik Yassin and Abdul Azis Rantisi, and Sikh political leader Simranjit Singh Mann, among others, Juergensmeyer takes us into the mindset of those who perpetrate and support violent acts. In the process, he helps us understand why these acts are often associated with religious causes and why they occur with such frequency at this moment in history. Terror in the Mind of God places these acts of violence in the context of global political and social changes, and posits them as attempts to empower the cultures of violence that support them. Juergensmeyer analyzes the economic, ideological, and gender-related dimensions of cultures that embrace a central sacred concept--cosmic war--and that employ religion to demonize their enemies. Juergensmeyer's narrative is engaging, incisive, and sweeping in scope. He convincingly shows that while, in many cases, religion supplies not only the ideology but also the motivation and organizational structure for the perpetrators of violent acts, it also carries with it the possibilities for peace. Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000

Preface -- The trajectory of imagined wars -- The apocalyptic war of the Islamic State -- The militant struggle of Mindanao Muslims -- The fight for Khalistan in India's Punjab -- How imagined wars end -- Interviews.

Kniha Teror v mysli Boží renomovaného amerického sociologa Marka Juergensmeyera vzbudila po svém prvním vydání v roce 2000 celosvětovou pozornost odborníků i širší veřejnosti. Nabízí totiž originální pohled na temnou alianci náboženství a násilí, jenž objasňuje vnitřní logiku náboženského terorismu. Prostřednictvím analýzy současných „kultur násilí“ shromážděných okolo různých náboženských idejí a komunit autor odhaluje symbolickou a pseudomorální strukturu násilných akcí, které si z náboženství vypůjčují spirituální scénáře boje proti Zlu a které posilují sebevědomí zdeptaných společenství. České vydání vychází z poslední, přepracované verze z roku 2003, jež zohledňuje nové události, především útok na Světové obchodní středisko a Pentagon z 11. září 2001. Juergensmeyerova práce je nepostradatelným titulem pro ty čtenáře, kteří se chtějí vážně zabývat fenoménem terorismu, kteří si kladou otázku po vztahu náboženství a politiky, i pro všechny, kdo cítí potřebu lépe se vyznat v současném světě.