Many of the critical political issues of our time - from the 1992-1995 Balkan Wars to the continuing crisis in the Middle East to the role of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe - revolve around issues of religion and tolerance. The predominant approach to these concerns is to espouse the doctrines of liberal humanistic virtue. These doctrines, however, fail to resonate in communities that maintain more traditional religious definitions of self and society. Modest Claims, which features essays by Seligman and dialogues between scholars representing the three monotheistic faiths, provides the...
Many of the critical political issues of our time - from the 1992-1995 Balkan Wars to the continuing crisis in the Middle East to the role of Muslim i...
As the countries of East-Central Europe struggle to create liberal democracy and the United States and other Western nations attempt to rediscover their own tarnished civil institutions, Adam Seligman identifies the neglect of the idea of "civil society" as a central concern common to both cultures today. Two centuries after its origins in the Enlightenment, the idea of civil society is being revived to provide an answer to the question of how individuals can pursue their own interests while preserving the greater good of society and, similarly, how society can advance the interests of the...
As the countries of East-Central Europe struggle to create liberal democracy and the United States and other Western nations attempt to rediscover ...
Innerworldly Individualism looks to colonial history, in particular, seventeenth-century New England, to understand the sources of modern nation building. Seligman analyzes how cultural assumptions of collective identity and social authority emerged out of the religious beliefs of the first generation of settlers in New England. He goes on to examine how these assumptions crystallized three generations later into patterns of normative order, forming the foundation of an American consciousness. Seligman uses sociological research grounded in early American history as his...
Innerworldly Individualism looks to colonial history, in particular, seventeenth-century New England, to understand the sources of modern ...
