Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity

by S. N. Eisenstadt

• ISBN13: 9780521641845
• ISBN10: 0521641845
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-02-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution is a major comparative analysis of fundamentalist movements in cultural and political context, with an emphasis on the contemporary scene. Leading sociologist S. N. Eisenstadt examines the meaning of the global rise of fundamentalism as one very forceful contemporary response to tensions in modernity and the dynamics of civilization. He compares modern fundamentalist movements with the proto-fundamentalist movements which arose in the 'axial civilizations' in pre-modern times; he shows how the great revolutions in Europe which arose in connection with these movements shaped the political and cultural programmes of modernity; and he contrasts post-Second World War Moslem, Jewish and Protestant fundamentalist movements with communal national movements, notably in Asia. The central theme of the book is the distinctively Jacobin features of fundamentalist movements and their ambivalent attitude to tradition: above all their attempts to essentialize tradition in an ideologically totalistic way. Eisenstadt has won the Amalfi book prize.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Heterodoxies, sectarianism, and utopianism in the constitution of proto-fundamentalist movements	1	(38)
Introduction	1	(2)
Heterodoxies and utopianism in Axial-Age Civilizations	3	(4)
The basic antinomies in the cultural programs of Axial Civilizations	7	(6)
Alternative visions; sectarianism and utopianism in different Axial civilizations: ``otherworldly civilizations''	13	(3)
This-worldly civilizations -- Confucianism	16	(3)
The monotheistic civilizations	19	(6)
Proto-fundamentalist movements in different Axial Civilizations	25	(14)
The Great Revolutions and the transformation of sectarian utopianism in the cultural and political program of modernity	39	(43)
The distinctive characteristics of the Great Revolutions -- the modern transformation of sectarian utopianism	39	(12)
The cultural and political program of modernity: basic premises	51	(11)
The cultural program of modernity: antinomies, tensions, and criticisms	62	(6)
The tensions in the political program of modernity -- pluralistic and Jacobin tendencies	68	(7)
Social movements as bearers of the major antinomies of the cultural and political programs of modernity	75	(3)
Social movements: the political process and the continual reconstruction of the realm of the political in modern societies	78	(4)
Fundamentalism as a modern Jacobin anti-modern utopia and heterodoxy -- the totalistic reconstruction of tradition	82	(37)
Introduction: the historical settings	82	(7)
The distinct sectarian utopian characteristics of modern fundamentalist movements	89	(5)
The Jacobin components and characteristics of the modern fundamentalist movements	94	(4)
The paradoxical attitude of modern fundamentalist movements to tradition; essentialized traditions as modern totalistic ideologies	98	(7)
The power of the Jacobin component of the fundamentalist movements	105	(1)
The fundamentalist and the Communist regimes -- a comparison of two modern Jacobin movements and regimes	106	(6)
Fundamentalist, fascist and national-socialist and contemporary communal national movements	112	(3)
A brief analytical-typological summary: proto-fundamentalist, fundamentalist, and communal-national movements	115	(4)
Historical setting and variability of fundamentalist movements	119	(77)
The intercivilizational setting of fundamentalist movements -- the hegemony of the West and the premises of the Western program of modernity	119	(6)
National and communist movements and regimes: the incorporation of socialist symbols and the crystallization of different programs of modernity	125	(10)
Changing intercivilizational settings, globalization, the weakening of Western hegemony and new challenges to it -- the development of communal-religious and fundamentalist movements	135	(14)
Ontological conceptions and the development of fundamentalist and communal-religious movements -- some comparative indications	149	(6)
The puzzle of the weak development of fundamentalist movements in Japan	155	(8)
Collective identity, institutional formations, and the development and impact of fundamentalist and communal-religious movements -- the USA	163	(10)
Collective identity, institutional formations, and the development and impact of fundamentalist and communal-religious movements: Asian societies, with a comparative look at Europe	173	(6)
Collective identity, institutional formations and the development and impact of fundamentalist and communal-religious movements: the historical and contemporary experience of India	179	(5)
The fundamentalist and communal-religious challenge to modern pluralistic regimes	184	(12)
Some considerations on modernity	196	(12)
Notes	208	(36)
Select bibliography	244	(26)
Index	270