Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Civil Religion
  • Cited by 21
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2010
Online ISBN:
9780511763144
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511763144
Subjects:
Political Theory, History of Ideas, Politics and International Relations
Information

Book description

Civil Religion offers philosophical commentaries on more than twenty thinkers stretching from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. It examines four important traditions within the history of modern political philosophy. The civil religion tradition, principally defined by Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau, seeks to domesticate religion by putting it solidly in the service of politics. The liberal tradition pursues an alternative strategy of domestication by seeking to put as much distance as possible between religion and politics. Modern theocracy is a militant reaction against liberalism, reversing the relationship of subordination asserted by civil religion. Finally, a fourth tradition is defined by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Aspects of their thought are not just modern, but hyper-modern, yet they manifest an often-hysterical reaction against liberalism that is fundamentally shared with the theocratic tradition. Together, these four traditions compose a vital dialogue that carries us to the heart of political philosophy itself.

Awards

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2011

Reviews

'Ronald Beiner does an excellent job of interpreting a dizzying number of works in the tradition, and everyone from undergraduates to seasonal readers of these texts will benefit from his readings … As the scope suggests, this book is an ambitious and ultimately impressive contribution to the history of political thought … Beiner is fully aware of the methodoligical assumptions inherent in his project, but a very helpful introduction and conclusion position him as a moderate and thoughtful presence between contextualism and Staussianism (each of which is given a fair hearing and indeed put to use when necessary).

Jacob Abolafia Source: Political Studies Review

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Page 1 of 2

Contents

Page 1 of 2

References

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.