The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions

Michael Walzer, one of America’s foremost political thinkers, examines this perplexing trend by studying India, Israel, & Algeria, three nations whose founding principles & institutions have been sharply attacked by three completely different groups of religious revivalists: Hindu militants, ultra-Orthodox Jews & messianic Zionists, & Islamic radicals.
 
In his provocative, well-reasoned discussion, Walzer asks why these secular democratic movements have failed to sustain their hegemony: Why have they been unable to reproduce their political culture beyond one or two generations? In a postscript, he compares the difficulties of contemporary secularism to the successful establishment of secular politics in the early American republic—thereby making an argument for American exceptionalism but gravely noting that we may be less exceptional today.

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Michael Walzer is a professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He served as the co-editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades & has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory & moral philosophy. His most recent book is A Foreign Policy for the Left.