Proselytization Revisited: Rights Talk, Free Markets and Culture Wars [book review]
: Martikainen, Tuomas
Publisher: Berghahn Books
: 2010
: Religion and Society
: Religion and Society
: 1
: 1
: 198
: 199
: 2150-9298
: 2150-9301
DOI: https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2010.010115
: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2010.010115
Rosalind Hackett has edited a welcome contribution to the study of contemporary, global proselytisms. The volume explores processes of proselytization as found among different religions and regions. Twenty authors share their theoretical reflections and empirical case studies in altogether nineteen articles. Hackett starts the introduction by stating that “contrary to the hopes and expectations of many, the neo-liberal trends of our global era have neither led to free markets for religion everywhere nor always to civility between religions in modern pluralistic states” (p. 1). Furthermore, “law and the mass media represent the new interface for relations between and within religions, as well as between religions and states” (p. 2). These statements summarize the central message of the book. Proselytism in related to global imbalances of power, and even though the role of states in controlling proselytism is clear, it is challenged, among others, by new media technologies and universal human rights discourses.
Book review: Rosalind Hackett (ed.). Proselytization Revisited: Rights Talk, Free Markets and Culture Wars, 480 p. London: Equinox, 2008. Paperback, £18.99/$29.95. ISBN: 9781845532277.