Björn Wittrock

Johann P. Arnason

This volume which also appeared as a special issue of Medieval Encounters deals with transformations of the major Eurasian civilizations in the early second millennium CE, and with the question of contrasts, parallels and connections between the different trajectories that took shape during this period. An introductory section discusses the theoretical problems of comparative analysis, with particular reference to formative phases of cultural crystallization. The first main thematic section focuses on European developments. The emergence of Western Christendom as a distinctive civilization is analyzed in a broader Eurasian context. Other contributions examine the Europeanization of northern and eastern peripheries, as well as the different course of events in the Byzantine world. The last section covers socio-cultural changes in non-European regions - the Islamic world, India, China and Japan - and concludes with a discussion of the Eurasian empire created by the Mongols.With contributions by Thomas Lindkvist; Sverre Bagge; Paul Jakov Smith; Paul Stephenson; Mikael Adolphson; Dr. Michal Biran; Said A. Arjomand; Gbor Klaniczay; R. I. Moore; Sheldon Pollock.Originally published in hardcover

Crystallizations, Divergences, Renaissances

Eurasian Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries

This book begins with a critical survey of current debates on the "clash of civilizations", goes on to discuss classical and contemporary approaches to civilizational theory, and concludes with an outline of a conceptual framework for comparative analysis.

Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions

Civilizations in Dispute

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt

A collection of essays by social theorists, historical sociologists and area specialists in classical, biblical and Asian studies. The contributions deal with cultural transformations in major civilizational centres during the “Axial Age”, the middle centuries of the last millennium BCE, and their long-term consequences.

Axial Civilizations and World History

This important new book by a major voice in the Social Imaginaries movement offers the most systematic attempt to establish conceptual and historical links between the idea of modernity as a new civilization and the notion of multiple modernities. Arnason demonstrates a theory of globalization that is still compatible with the emphasis on unity and diversity of modernity as a civilization.

Horizons, Pathways and Mutations

The Labyrinth of Modernity

Combining theoretical and empirical research, these 12 essays examine the role of religion and its prospects in Europe. On the one hand, the volume discusses growing Islamic presence in Europe as a reminder of enduring religious pluralism, not least in view of the high prominence given to Islamic experience in arguments against over-generalised notions of secularisation. On the other hand, it explores the question of Christian motivated extremism and religious nationalism. Against this background, the contributors discuss the role of religion in other countries throughout the world including China, Japan, Russia and the MENA region.

European and Global Perspectives

Religion and Politics

David Roberts

Nicholas Vazsonyi

Jóhann Páll Árnason

Emeritus Professor of Sociology Johann P Arnason

In analyses of Auto da Fe, Crowds and Power, and the aphorisms, the authors elucidate key aspects of Canetti's interrogation of human existence and human history across five thematic complexes: individual and social psychology, totalitarian politics, religion and politics, theories of society, and power and culture. They thus trace the movement of Canetti's thought from an apocalyptic sense of crisis to his search for cultural resources to set against the holocaust of European civilization."--BOOK JACKET.

Johann P. Arnason

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