Book description
Claiming Society for God focuses on common strategies employed by
religiously orthodox, fundamentalist movements around the world.
Rather than employing terrorism, as much of post-9/11 thinking
suggests, these movements use a patient, under-the-radar strategy of
infiltrating and subtly transforming civil society. Nancy J. Davis and
Robert V. Robinson tell the story of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
Shas in Israel, Comunione e Liberazione in Italy, and the Salvation
Army in the United States. They show how these movements build massive
grassroots networks of religiously based social service agencies,
hospitals, schools, and businesses to bring their own brand of faith
to popular and political fronts.
"Illuminating intersections of religion and public life in
four different nations, this book is topical. Given that two of these
nations are in the Middle East and one of them is Egypt, it is timely,
even urgent." -R. Stephen Warner, University of Illinois at Chicago
Nancy J. Davis is Lester Martin Jones Professor of Sociology at
DePauw University.
Robert V. Robinson is the Class of 1964 Chancellor's Professor of
Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington.
