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Rightwing Populism: An Element of Neodemocracy (SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice #40)
by Klaus Von BeymeThis book, written by a prominent German political scientist and specialist for political theory and comparative government, analyses right-wing populism as a topical theme of postmodern party systems in Europe and the United States.
Rigoberta Menchu And The Story Of All Poor Guatemalans
by David StollRigoberta Menchú is a living legend, a young woman who said that her odyssey from a Mayan Indian village to revolutionary exile was "the story of all poor Guatemalans." By turning herself into an everywoman, she became a powerful symbol for 500 years of indigenous resistance to colonialism. Her testimony, I, Rigoberta Menchú, denounced atrocities by the Guatemalan army and propelled her to the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. But her story was not the eyewitness account that she claimed. In this hotly debated book, key points of which have been corroborated by the New York Times, David Stoll compares a cult text with local testimony from Rigoberta Menchú's hometown. His reconstruction of her story goes to the heart of debates over political correctness and identity politics and provides a dramatic illustration of the rebirth of the sacred in the postmodern academy. This expanded edition includes a new foreword from Elizabeth Burgos, the editor of I, Rigoberta Menchú, as well as a new afterword from Stoll, who discusses Rigoberta Menchú's recent bid for the Guatemalan presidency and addresses the many controversies and debates that have arisen since the book was first published.
The Rinderpest Campaigns: A Virus, Its Vaccines, and Global Development in the Twentieth Century (Global and International History)
by Amanda Kay McVetyAmanda Kay McVety has written the first history of the international effort to eradicate rinderpest - a devastating cattle disease - which began in the 1940s and ended in 2011. Rinderpest is the only other disease besides smallpox to have been eradicated, but very few people in the United States know about it, because it did not infect humans and never broke out in North America. In other parts of the world, however, rinderpest was a serious economic and social burden and the struggle against it was a critical part of the effort to fight poverty and hunger globally. McVety follows the deployment of rinderpest vaccines around the globe, exploring the role of the environment in the understanding of development, internationalism, and national security. She expands the standard Cold War narratives to show how these concepts were framed not only by economic and political concerns, but also by biological ones.
Ring of Lies
by Roni DunevichInternationally bestselling crime writer, Roni Dunevich, debuts Stateside with this electrifying espionage thriller—perfect for fans of Daniel Silva—about Alex Bartal, director of the Mossad’s Operations Branch, who is threatened by dark horrors of the past that refuse to stay buried.One of Bartal’s agents is on a mission to kidnap an Iranian general, interrogate him, then kill him. But the plan goes terribly wrong when the agent, the head of a Mossad special unit, is captured instead—generating a series of escalating crises in Europe and Asia, which results in the death, one member at a time, of the Ring of the Nibelungs: a sleeper cell network of Mossad agents.Convinced that there is a traitor within the Mossad, Bartal must race to identify and eliminate the mole. His first hunch leads him to Berlin, but as his investigation evolves, Bartal is forced to confront Europe's dark, troubled history. Is he chasing an elusive ghost across the Continent? Or is he closing in on a ruthless killer who refuses to let go of the past?Filled with harrowing twists and edge-of-the-seat suspense, Ring of Lies is an adrenaline-fueled, nail-biting story of espionage and the first novel from Roni Dunevich’s award-winning Alex Bartal series to be translated into English.
The Ring of Truth
by Susan Beth PfefferThe truth isn't the most comfortable choice, but it's the only one with any future Sloan Fredericks can still remember the weeks she spent in the hospital when she was nine, the only survivor of the accident that killed her parents and little brother. Now she lives with her grandmother in the kind of grand old house you'd expect from a family known for both their wealth and their political prowess. It's also the kind of house that has a music room, which is where Sloan goes searching for a little peace and quiet during her gran's annual party, until an older man with a important reputation corners her long enough to say some things that Sloan doesn't want to hear. She quickly brushes past him, hoping that no one saw them. But someone did--one of Sloan's own friends--who confesses that the man did the same thing to her, only much, much worse. Although meant to be private, the confession doesn't stay that way, and soon the secret is all anyone can talk about. Can the truth save their family, or will it just dig up even uglier secrets?
Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks
by Geoff White'Rinsed is a triumph. If you want to understand how the chaotic world around us really works, read this book!’MILES JOHNSON, AUTHOR OF CHASING SHADOWS'A riveting look at not only the nuts and bolts of cons and crimes but the techniques detectives use to stalk cyber criminals'FINANCIAL TIMES'Gripping'THE ECONOMIST For as long as people have been stealing money, there has been an industry ready to wash it. But what happened when our economy went digital? How does the global underworld wash its dirty money in the Internet age?Rinsed reveals how organized crooks have joined forces with the world’s most sophisticated cybercriminals. The result: a vast virtual money-laundering machine too intelligent for most authorities to crack. Through a series of jaw-dropping cases and interviews with insiders at all levels of the system, Geoff White shows how thieves are uniting to successfully get away with the most atrocious crimes on an unprecedented scale.The book follows money from the outrageous luxury of Dubai hotels to sleepy backwaters of coastal Ireland, from the backstreets of Nigeria to the secretive zones of North Korea, to investigate this new cyber supercartel. Through first-hand accounts from the victims of their devastating crimes, White uncovers the extraordinary true story of hi-tech laundering – and exposes its terrible human cost.'Rinsed is as twisty, colourful and terrifyingly eye-opening as the people White investigates. You’ll never look at wealth, technology and crime in the same way’CARA MCGOOGAN, AUTHOR OF THE POISON LINE'A gripping look at the battle between cops and criminals on the new frontier of financial crime'BRADLEY HOPE, CO-AUTHOR OF BILLION DOLLAR WHALE
Rio: Unravelling the Consequences
by Caroline ThomasThe interdisciplinary collection of essays investigates whether UNCED and its output were appropriate for averting global environmental and developmental catastrophe. The intellectual debate inside and outside UNCED has been dominated by powerful entrenched interests which marginalise rival interpretations of the crisis and block possible alternative ways forward. The crisis is therefore being tackled by a continuation of the very policies that largely caused it in the first place.
Rio as Method: Collective Resistance for a New Generation (Dissident Acts)
by Paul AmarRio as Method provides a new set of lenses for apprehending and transforming the world at critical junctures. Challenging trends that position Global South scholars as research informants or objects, this Rio de Janeiro-based network of scholars, activists, attorneys, and political leaders center their Brazilian megacity as a globally relevant source for transformational world-making insights. Presenting this volume as a handbook and manifesto for energizing public engagement and direct action, more than forty contributors reconceive method as a politics of knowledge production that animates new ways of being, seeing, and doing politics. They draw on lessons from the city’s intersecting religious, feminist, queer, Black, Indigenous, and urbanist movements to examine issues ranging from state violence, urban marginalization, and moral panic to anticorruption efforts, paramilitary policing, sex work, and mutual aid. Rethinking theoretical and collaborative research methods, Rio as Method models theories of decolonial analysis and concepts of collective resistance that can be taken up by scholar-activists anywhere.Contributors. Rosiane Rodrigues de Almeida, José Claudio Souza Alves, Tamires Maria Alves, Paul Amar, Marcelo Caetano Andreoli, Beatriz Bissio, Thaddeus Gregory Blanchette, Fernando Brancoli, Thayane Brêtas, Victoria Broadus, Fatima Cecchetto, Leonard Cortana, Marcos Coutinho, Monica Cunha, Luiz Henrique Eloy Amado, Marielle Franco, Cristiane Gomes Julião, Benjamin Lessing, Roberto Kant de Lima, Amanda De Lisio, Bryan McCann, Flávia Medeiros, Ana Paula Mendes de Miranda, Sean T. Mitchell, Rodrigo Monteiro, Vitória Moreira, Jacqueline de Oliveira Muniz, Laura Rebecca Murray, Cesar Pinheiro Teixeira, Osmundo Pinho, Paulo Pinto, María Victoria Pita, João Gabriel Rabello Sodré, Luciane Rocha, Marcos Alexandre dos Santos Albuquerque, Ana Paula da Silva, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Soraya Simões, Indianare Siqueira, Antonio Carlos de Souza Lima, Leonardo Vieira Silva
Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and the Environment (Built Environment City Studies)
by José L. S. Gámez Zhongjie Lin Jeffrey S. NesbitUsing Rio de Janeiro as the case study city, this book highlights and examines issues surrounding the development of mega-cities in Latin America and beyond. Complex dynamics of urbanization such as mega-event-driven development, infrastructure investment, and informal urban expansion are intertwined with changing climatic conditions that demand new approaches to sustainable urbanism. The urban conditions facing 21st century cities such as Rio emphasize the need to revisit urban forms, reintegrate infrastructure, and re-evaluate practices. With contributions from 15 scholars from several countries exploring urbanism, urbanization, and climate change, this book provides insights into the contextual and environmental issues shaping Rio in the age of globalization. Each of the book’s three sections addresses an interdisciplinary range of topics impacting urbanism in Latin America, which will be accessible to researchers and professionals interested in urbanization, urban design, sustainability, planning, and architecture.
Riot: A Love Story
by Shashi TharoorWho killed twenty-four-year-old Priscilla Hart? This highly motivated, idealistic American student had come to India to volunteer in women's health programs, but had her work made a killer out of an enraged husband? Or was her death the result of a xenophobic attack? Had an indiscriminate love affair spun out of control? Had a disgruntled, deeply jealous colleague been pushed to the edge? Or was she simply the innocent victim of a riot that had exploded in that fateful year of 1989 between Hindus and Muslims? Experimenting masterfully with narrative form in this brilliant tour de force, internationally acclaimed novelist Shashi Tharoor chronicles the mystery of Priscilla Hart's death through the often contradictory accounts of a dozen or more characters, all of whom relate their own versions of the events surrounding her killing. Like his two previous novels, Riot probes and reveals the richness of India, and is at once about love, hate, cultural collision, the ownership of history, religious fanaticism, and the impossibility of knowing the truth.
Riot Days
by Maria AlyokhinaA Pussy Rioter’s riveting, hallucinatory account of her years in Russia’s criminal system and of finding power in the most powerless of situationsIn February 2012, after smuggling an electric guitar into Moscow’s iconic central cathedral, Maria Alyokhina and other members of the radical collective Pussy Riot performed a provocative “Punk Prayer,” taking on the Orthodox church and its support for Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime.For this, they were charged with “organized hooliganism” and were tried while confined in a cage and guarded by Rottweilers. That trial and Alyokhina’s subsequent imprisonment became an international cause. For Alyokhina, her two-year sentence launched a bitter struggle against the Russian prison system and an iron-willed refusal to be deprived of her humanity. Teeming with protests and police, witnesses and cellmates, informers and interrogators, Riot Days gives voice to Alyokhina’s insistence on the right to say no, whether to a prison guard or to the president. Ultimately, this insistence delivers unprecedented victories for prisoners’ rights.Evocative, wry, laser-sharp, and laconically funny, Alyokhina’s account is studded with song lyrics, legal transcripts, and excerpts from her jail diary—dispatches from a young woman who has faced tyranny and returned with the proof that against all odds even one person can force its retreat.
Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings
by Joshua CloverBaltimore. Ferguson. Tottenham. Clichy-sous-Bois. Oakland. Ours has become an "age of riots" as the struggle of people versus state and capital has taken to the streets. Award-winning poet and scholar Joshua Clover offers a new understanding of this present moment and its history. Rioting was the central form of protest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was supplanted by the strike in the early nineteenth century. It returned to prominence in the 1970s, profoundly changed along with the coordinates of race and class. From early wage demands to recent social justice campaigns pursued through occupations and blockades, Clover connects these protests to the upheavals of a sclerotic economy in a state of moral collapse. Historical events such as the global economic crisis of 1973 and the decline of organized labor, viewed from the perspective of vast social transformations, are the proper context for understanding these eruptions of discontent. As social unrest against an unsustainable order continues to grow, this valuable history will help guide future antagonists in their struggles toward a revolutionary horizon.From the Hardcover edition.
Rioting for Representation: Local Ethnic Mobilization in Democratizing Countries (Problems of International Politics)
by Risa J. TohaEthnic riots are a costly and all too common occurrence during political transitions in multi-ethnic settings. Why do ethnic riots occur in certain parts of a country and not others? How does violence eventually decline? Drawing on rich case studies and quantitative evidence from Indonesia between 1990 and 2012, this book argues that patterns of ethnic rioting are not inevitably driven by inter-group animosity, weakness of state capacity, or local demographic composition. Rather, local ethnic elites strategically use violence to leverage their demands for political inclusion during political transition and that violence eventually declines as these demands are accommodated. Toha breaks new ground in showing that particular political reforms—increased political competition, direct local elections, and local administrative units partitioning—in ethnically diverse contexts can ameliorate political exclusion and reduce overall levels of violence between groups.
Riots And Victims: Violence And The Construction Of Communal Identity Among Bengali Muslims, 1905-1947
by Patricia A. Gossman Patricia A. GrossmanIn recent decades, the world has witnessed the emergence of several protracted violent conflicts and the eruption of ethnic and communal violence in countries such as Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka. Riots and Victims challenges the popular academic interpretation of such events as examples of tribal slaughter or spontaneous eruptions, fueled by historic conflict between religious and ethnic communities. This book examines the origins and consequences of the violence that occurred between the Muslim and Hindu communities in pre-partition Bengal, which ultimately resulted in the creation of Pakistan. Gossman argues that communal violence and communal identity were not merely the consequences of long-term animosities, but rather ploys orchestrated by mid-level politicians for their own advancement and aggrandizement. Riots and Victims introduces new analyses of local violence and identity, and explores issues of far-reaching importance.
Rip Crew
by Sebastian RotellaMaverick agent Valentine Pescatore is back and investigating a brutal killing that leads him across borders and reveals a vast conspiracy of wealth and power terrifyingly close to home.Valentine Pescatore, the former U.S. agent, finds himself back on American soil, investigating the merciless killing of a group of women in a motel room. At first, the crime seems to be a straightforward case of gangsters battling for territory. Soon, however, the motive is revealed to be much deeper and more sinister: a single witness who knows too much is being hunted.From an author who has been praised for his "pounding action scenes [and] ferocious prose style" (Marilyn Stasio, NYTBR), RIP CREW races at breakneck speed as Pescatore finds himself face-to-face with his most terrifying assignment yet.
Rip GOP: How the New America Is Dooming the Republicans
by Stanley GreenbergFor decades the GOP has seen itself in an uncompromising struggle against a New America that is increasingly secular, racially diverse, and fueled by immigration. It has fought non-traditional family structures, ripped huge holes in the social safety net, tried to stop women from being independent, and pitted aging rural Evangelicals against the younger, more dynamic cities. <P><P>Since the 2010 election put the Tea Party in control of the GOP, the party has condemned America to years of fury, polarization, and broken government. The election of Donald Trump enabled the Republicans to make things even worse. All seemed lost. <P><P>But the Republicans have set themselves up for a shattering defeat. <P><P>In RIP GOP, Stanley Greenberg argues that the 2016 election hurried the party's imminent demise. Using amazing insights from his focus groups with real people and surprising revelations from his own polls, Greenberg shows why the GOP is losing its defining battle. He explores why the 2018 election, when the New America fought back, was no fluke. And he predicts that in 2020, the party of Lincoln will be left to the survivors, opening America up to a new era of renewal and progress.
RIP GOP: How the New America Is Dooming the Republicans
by Stanley B. GreenbergA leading pollster and adviser to America’s most important political figures explains why the Republicans will crash in 2020. For decades the GOP has seen itself in an uncompromising struggle against a New America that is increasingly secular, racially diverse, and fueled by immigration. It has fought non-traditional family structures, ripped huge holes in the social safety net, tried to stop women from being independent, and pitted aging rural Evangelicals against the younger, more dynamic cities.Since the 2010 election put the Tea Party in control of the GOP, the party has condemned America to years of fury, polarization and broken government. The election of Donald Trump enabled the Republicans to make things even worse. All seemed lost.But the Republicans have set themselves up for a shattering defeat.In RIP GOP, Stanley Greenberg argues that the 2016 election hurried the party’s imminent demise. Using amazing insights from his focus groups with real people and surprising revelations from his own polls, Greenberg shows why the GOP is losing its defining battle. He explores why the 2018 election, when the New America fought back, was no fluke. And he predicts that in 2020 the party of Lincoln will be left to the survivors, opening America up to a new era of renewal and progress.
Rip the Angels from Heaven: A Novel
by David KruglerIntelligence officer Ellis Voigt fights to prevent the Soviets from infiltrating the Manhattan Project while running from enemies on both sides, in the thrilling sequel to The Dead Don’t Bleed. Washington, DC, 1945. Lieutenant Ellis Voigt of the Office of Naval Intelligence is desperate to keep the secrets that threaten his life. The war overseas is going well for America, but Voigt can’t escape a web of double-agents and undercover spies who follow his every move. The FBI suspects that he is the communist who murdered a Naval officer in a Washington back alley. The Soviets believe he’s holding back information from their contacts, and they’re willing to use any means necessary to extract it. When Voigt is sent to New Mexico on a secret mission to identify a Soviet spy, he is tailed by both the FBI and the Russians, and is running out of people he can trust. As the team at Los Alamos prepares to test an atomic bomb in the desert, Voigt faces the dilemma he’d been trying to avoid: he can stop the Soviets from getting the bomb or he can save himself—but he might not be able to do both.
Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World
by Jeremy FriedmanA historical account of ideology in the Global South as the postwar laboratory of socialism, its legacy following the Cold War, and the continuing influence of socialist ideas worldwide. In the first decades after World War II, many newly independent Asian and African countries and established Latin American states pursued a socialist development model. Jeremy Friedman traces the socialist experiment over forty years through the experience of five countries: Indonesia, Chile, Tanzania, Angola, and Iran. These states sought paths to socialism without formal adherence to the Soviet bloc or the programs that Soviets, East Germans, Cubans, Chinese, and other outsiders tried to promote. Instead, they attempted to forge new models of socialist development through their own trial and error, together with the help of existing socialist countries, demonstrating the flexibility and adaptability of socialism. All five countries would become Cold War battlegrounds and regional models, as new policies in one shaped evolving conceptions of development in another. Lessons from the collapse of democracy in Indonesia were later applied in Chile, just as the challenge of political Islam in Indonesia informed the policies of the left in Iran. Efforts to build agrarian economies in West Africa influenced Tanzania’s approach to socialism, which in turn influenced the trajectory of the Angolan model. Ripe for Revolution shows socialism as more adaptable and pragmatic than often supposed. When we view it through the prism of a Stalinist orthodoxy, we miss its real effects and legacies, both good and bad. To understand how socialism succeeds and fails, and to grasp its evolution and potential horizons, we must do more than read manifestos. We must attend to history.
The Ripple Effect
by Alex Prud'HommeNow in paperback from the bestselling coauthor with Julia Child of My Life in France "a balanced and insightful assessment of what could emerge as the dominant issue in decades ahead" (Associated Press)--the fate of fresh water in the twenty-first century.With The Ripple Effect, Alex Prud'homme has changed the way we think about the water we drink. Inspired by an interest in our worldwide obsession with bottled water, Prud'homme undertook an ambitious quest to understand the evolving story of freshwater. What he found was shocking: as the climate warms and world population grows, demand for water has surged, but supplies of fresh water are static or dropping, and new threats to water quality appear every day. The questions he sought to answer were urgent: Will there be enough water to satisfy demand? What are the threats to its quality? What is the state of our water infrastructure--both the pipes that bring us fresh water and the levees that keep it out? How secure is our water supply from natural disasters and terrorist attacks? Can we create new sources for our water supply through scientific innovation? Is water a right like air or a commodity like oil--and who should control the tap? Like Daniel Yergin's seminal classic The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power, The Ripple Effect is a masterwork of investigation and a dramatic narrative, spanning from the alleged murder of a water scientist in New Jersey to the epic confrontation between salmon fishermen and copper miners in Alaska. The Ripple Effect is a major achievement and will change our understanding of the importance of water forever. el Pollan has changed the way we think about the food we eat; Alex Prud'homme will change the way we think about the water we drink. Informative and provocative, The Ripple Effect is a major achievement.
Riptide (An FBI Thriller #5)
by Catherine CoulterAgents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock must protect the life of a young political speechwriter in this New York Times bestseller in Catherine Coulter’s FBI Thriller series.A senior speechwriter for the governor of New York, Becca Matlock is at the top of her professional game when she receives a disturbing phone call that threatens everything: “Stop sleeping with the governor or I’ll kill him.” The thing is, she’s not sleeping with her boss, but that fact doesn’t stop the calls from the man who refers to himself as her “boyfriend.” When her stalker murders an innocent in New York City and the governor is shot in the neck, Becca comes under suspicion and takes off for the sanctuary of Riptide, an isolated community on the coast of Maine. But she soon finds herself at even greater risk...FBI special agents Savich and Sherlock are in Riptide to help out an old friend of Savich’s father, and soon become embroiled in Becca’s deadly situation. But as enemies new and old circle closer, time is running out for them all.
Rise: In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedom
by Brigitte Gabriel"YOU NEVER REALLY OWN FREEDOM, YOU ONLY PRESERVE IT FOR THE NEXT GENERATION." Issuing a bold wake-up call to America, New York Times best-selling author Brigitte Gabriel reveals the people, organizations, and forces at work to dismantle our Judeo-Christian values and freedoms, destabilize and threaten our national security, and radically redefine our very way of life.Rise will empower you by: Providing a plan for preserving your values and freedoms before it&’s too lateEducating you on how to identify behaviors and ideas that could threaten the local community and ultimately national securityMotivating you to unite with other patriots who wish to preserve our endangered Judeo-Christian values and freedomsHelping you understand what you can do to fight the forces that aim to undermine our nationThis book is critical to your family and your personal freedom. Will you sit back and watch the greatest country our world has ever known slowly fade away? Or will you rise?
Rise: How Jeremy Corbyn Inspired the Young to Create a New Socialism
by Liam Young‘Liam is one of Britain’s most brilliant young writers. He was ridiculed for believing a Corbyn-led Labour party could inspire people – but ultimately completely vindicated. If you want to know why the youth surge happened, this is an absolute must-read.’ Owen JonesThe 2017 general election saw Jeremy Corbyn inspire young people to demand a new kind of socialism. Now, from the heart of the Labour Party, Liam Young asks how this new movement can help secure a fairer and better society for all. When Jeremy Corbyn decided to stand for the Labour leadership in 2015, Liam Young - then just 19 years old - knew this was a watershed moment for the party and for young people across the country. He joined Corbyn's campaign and was soon writing for the Independent and the New Statesman, explaining how the new leader would energise the youth vote and bring forward a new kind of politics. While many commentators questioned Corbyn's actions, Young wrote about how his policies would work and be hugely popular. He harnessed the power of social media and is emerging as one of the most influential voices on the left for his generation and beyond. When the general election results of 2017 came through, he was not surprised by the surge in support for Corbyn's Labour.Rise is not only a superb insider account of how the youth movement in the Labour Party galvanised a nation that will appeal to readers of books by Owen Jones and Paul Mason, but it is also a manifesto for the future and a call to action for anyone who believes it should be possible to create a better Britain.
Rise and Decline: Where We Are and What We Can Do About It
by Bruce D. ThatcherSooner or later, all nations die. Rise and Decline shows that America has passed its peak in world prominence and is on the decline, identifies the core values that drove its ascendance, and shows that the reasons we’re now in decline are not those so often offered up – corruption, national debt, weakening military, racial divide, poverty, etc., etc. These are merely symptoms of the root problems – growing indifference and disdain for America’s founding values. Rise and Decline studies six of history’s great democracies and republics – Ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The French Third Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Four of these no longer exist, and the U.K. and U.S.A. are in decline. Thatcher shows that citizen acceptance and support of specific principles is basic to the founding of every nation and drives its ascendance. Dishonoring and disdaining those principles leads inexorably to national decline and, ultimately, extinction. Abraham Lincoln once said, as regards the United States, America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. America’s raison d’être is liberty, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. These values are being usurped by our government and eschewed or disdained by citizens. Unless this erosion is halted or reversed in ways described in Rise and Decline, the end of the United States will arrive sooner, rather than later.
The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom
by Steven D. SmithFamiliar accounts of religious freedom in the United States often tell a story of visionary founders who broke from the centuries-old patterns of Christendom to establish a political arrangement committed to secular and religiously neutral government. These novel commitments were supposedly embodied in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. But this story is largely a fairytale, Steven Smith says in this incisive examination of a much-mythologized subject. He makes the case that the American achievement was not a rejection of Christian commitments but a retrieval of classic Christian ideals of freedom of the church and freedom of conscience. Smith maintains that the distinctive American contribution to religious freedom was not in the First Amendment, which was intended merely to preserve the political status quo in matters of religion. What was important was the commitment to open contestation between secularist and providentialist understandings of the nation which evolved over the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, far from vindicating constitutional principles, as conventional wisdom suggests, the Supreme Court imposed secular neutrality, which effectively repudiated this commitment to open contestation. Rather than upholding what was distinctively American and constitutional, these decisions subverted it. The negative consequences are visible today in the incoherence of religion clause jurisprudence and the intense culture wars in American politics.