This month, Princeton University Press releases “The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews” by Michael N. Barnett (George Washington University). The publisher’s description follows:
How do American Jews envision their role in the world? Are they tribal—a 
people whose obligations extend solely to their own? Or are they prophetic—a light unto nations, working to repair the world? The Star and the Stripes is an original, provocative interpretation of the effects of these worldviews on the foreign policy beliefs of American Jews since the nineteenth century. Michael Barnett argues that it all begins with the political identity of American Jews. As Jews, they are committed to their people’s survival. As Americans, they identify with, and believe their survival depends on, the American principles of liberalism, religious freedom, and pluralism. This identity and search for inclusion form a political theology of prophetic Judaism that emphasizes the historic mission of Jews to help create a world of peace and justice.
The political theology of prophetic Judaism accounts for two enduring features of the foreign policy beliefs of American Jews. They exhibit a cosmopolitan sensibility, advocating on behalf of human rights, humanitarianism, and international law and organizations. They also are suspicious of nationalism—including their own. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that American Jews are natural-born Jewish nationalists, Barnett charts a long history of ambivalence; this ambivalence connects their early rejection of Zionism with the current debate regarding their attachment to Israel. And, Barnett contends, this growing ambivalence also explains the rising popularity of humanitarian and social justice movements among American Jews.
Rooted in the understanding of how history shapes a political community’s sense of the world, The Star and the Stripes is a bold reading of the past, present, and possible future foreign policies of American Jews.
Scottish Revolution argues for a new interpretation of the seventeenth-century Scottish revolution that goes beyond questions about its radicalism, and reconsiders its place within an overarching ‘British’ narrative.
treatises on ecclesiastical legal procedure. Beginning with the eleventh-century
have increasingly focused on religion, noting the significant increase in the number of cases involving religion. As a result, law and religion has become a specific area of study. The work of Professor Norman Doe at Cardiff University has served as a catalyst for this change, especially through the creation of the LLM in Canon Law in 1991 (the first degree of its type since the time of the Reformation) and the Centre for Law and Religion in 1998 (the first of its kind in the UK). Published to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the LLM in Canon Law and to pay tribute to Professor Doe’s achievements so far, this volume reflects upon the interdisciplinary development of law and religion.
explores this question, bringing the insights of Robert Bellah to a consideration of various expressions of the contemporary Confucian revival. Bellah identified American civil religion as a religious dimension of life that can be found throughout US culture, but one without any formal institutional structure. Rather, this “civil” form of religion provides the ethical principles that command reverence and by which a nation judges itself. Extending Bellah’s work, contributors from both the social sciences and the humanities conceive of East Asia’s Confucian revival as a “habit of the heart,” an underlying belief system that guides a society, and examine how Confucianism might function as a civil religion in China, Korea, and Japan. They discuss what aspects of Confucian tradition and thought are being embraced; some of the social movements, political factors, and opportunities connected with the revival of the tradition; and why Confucianism has not traveled much beyond East Asia. The late Robert Bellah’s reflection on the possibility for a global civil religion concludes the volume.
A group of experts will discuss the current hopes and challenges facing the world today in the exercise of religious freedom. Presenters include Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations; Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, Associate Professor of International Relations, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.; and Drew Christiansen, S.J., Distinguished Professor of of Ethics and Development at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The discussion will be moderated by Matt Malone, S.J., president and editor in chief of America Media, and is made possible through a partnership with the Catholic Communications Campaign.
pillar of the Islamic Republic and the spearhead of its influence. Their sway has spread across the Middle East, where the Guards have overseen loyalist support to Bashar al-Assad in Syria and been a staunch backer in Iraq’s war against ISIS-bringing its own troops, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Shiite militias to the fight. Links to terrorism, human rights abuses, and the suppression of popular democracy have shrouded the Revolutionary Guards in controversy.
contexts, this volume advances the anthropology of Christianity through ethnographically rich, comparative insights from across the Australia-Pacific region. Christianity, Conflict, and Renewal in Australia and the Pacificpresents new perspectives on the performative dynamics of Christian belief, conflict, and renewal. Addressing experiences of cultural and spiritual renewal, contributors reveal how tensions can arise between spiritual and political expressions of culture and identity, opening up alternative spaces for spiritual realization and religious change. These local processes further mobilize responses of individuals and groups to state forces and political reforms, in turn, influencing the shape of translocal and transnational Christian practices.