Nation and Religion

by Van Der Veer, Peter; Lehmann, Hartmut

• ISBN13: 9780691012322
• ISBN10: 0691012326
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-12
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Does modernity make religion politically irrelevant? Conventional scholarly and popular wisdom says that it does. The prevailing view assumes that the onset of western modernity--characterized by the rise of nationalism, the dominance of capitalism, and the emergence of powerful state institutions--favors secularism and relegates religion to the purely private realm. This collection of essays on nationalism and religion in Europe and Asia challenges that view. Contributors show that religion and politics are mixed together in complex and vitally important ways not just in the East, but in the West as well. The book focuses on four societies: India, Japan, Britain, and the Netherlands. It shows that religion and nationalism in these societies combined to produce such notions as the nation being chosen for a historical task (imperialism, for example), the possibility of national revival, and political leadership as a form of salvation. The volume also examines the qualities of religious discourse and practice that can be used for nationalist purposes, paying special attention to how religion can help to give meaning to sacrifice in national struggle. The book's comparative approach underscores that developments in colonizing and colonized countries, too often considered separately, are subtly interrelated. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Benedict R. Anderson, Talal Asad, Susan Bayly, Partha Chatterjee, Frans Groot, Harry Harootunian, Hugh McLeod, Barbara Metcalf, and Peter van Rooden.

Author Biography

Peter van der Veer is Professor of Comparative Religion and Director of the Research Center for Religion and Society at the University of Amsterdam Hartmut Lehmann is Director of the Max Planck Institute for History in Gottingen

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	3	(12)
Peter van der Veer
Hartmut Lehmann
The Moral State: Religion, Nation, and Empire in Victorian Britain and British India	15	(29)
Peter van der Veer
Protestantism and British National Identity, 1815-1945	44	(27)
Hugh McLeod
Race in Britain and India	71	(25)
Susan Bayly
History, the Nation, and Religion: The Transformations of the Dutch Religious Past	96	(16)
Peter van Rooden
On Religious and Linguistic Nationalisms: The Second Partition of Bengal	112	(17)
Partha Chatterjee
Nationalism, Modernity, and Muslim Identity in India before 1947	129	(15)
Barbara D. Metcalf
Memory, Mourning, and National Morality: Yasukuni Shrine and the Reunion of State and Religion in Postwar Japan	144	(17)
Harry Harootunian
Papists and Beggars: National Festivals and Nation Building in the Netherlands during the Nineteenth Century	161	(17)
Frans Groot
Religion, Nation-State, Secularism	178	(19)
Talal Asad
The Goodness of Nations	197	(8)
Benedict R.
Bibliography	205	(18)
List of Contributors	223	(2)
Index	225