Religion in Politics and Society

This reader contains 24 articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals offer illustrations of the ways in which religion informs and collides with social and political practices around the world. The articles are grouped into sections that look into the role religion plays in modern culture, political violence, social movements, ecology, and gender. Particular topics include the movement within the social sciences to reexamine the role of religion in society, the view that Islamists have of the West, the role of religion in the Kashmir conflict, the growth of the Falun Gong religion in China, faith-based environmentalism, and the changing role of women in Theravada Buddhism. The overwhelming majority of the sources are American mainstream periodicals. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)