Copyright © 2010 by James Leonard Park

Books selected and reviewed by James Park.
Red comments are the opinions of this reviewer.

Mark Juergensmeyer  
Terror in the Mind of God:
The Global Rise of Religious Violence

(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000)       316 pages
(ISBN: 0-520-22301-2; hardcover)
(Library of Congress call number: BL65.V55J84 2000)

    Sociologist and scholar of religion Mark Juergensmeyer
compares and contrasts several very different forms of religious terrorism:
(1) violence against abortion clinics;
(2) 'Christian' militia groups;
(3) 'Catholics' vs. 'Protestants' in Northern Ireland;
(4) Arabs vs. Jews in Palestine;
(5) 'Islamic' terror against the non-Islamic world;
(6) Sikhs vs. Hindus in India;
(7) Aum Shinrikyo in Japan.

    This book is based on extensive reading
and on personal interviews with some of the prime movers
of religiously-motivated violence.

    The author does not have a personal stake in any of these conflicts,
which allows him to be an objective observer of all the violence.  
And the fact that he covers so many different tribes
means that they cast light on each other.  

    All violence in the name of God is based on rather special world-views,
which are usually shared only by a minority of the believers
in any particular religion in whose name the violence is being committed.  

    More research is needed before the world will be able to prevent
terrorism in the name of religion.
But this book lays a firm foundation for further such investigations.

    This book was published before the September 11, 2001
attack on the World Trade Center in New York City
and the Pentagon near Washington DC,
but it does deal with the earlier attack on the Twin Towers, in 1993.
If we had learned from that attack,
we might have been better prepared
when the same terrorist movement tried again in 2001.

    The better we understand the thinking of religious terrorists,
the better we will be able to protect ourselves from future attacks.

Robin Wright 
Sacred Rage:
The Wrath of Militant Islam

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001)       330 pages
(ISBN: 0-7432-3342-5; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: DS631.W75 2001)

    Originally published in 1985;
now with new chapters about September 11, 2001.
This reporter gathers in one place all the accounts of terrorism
by Islamic militants.  Only passing explanation of their motives.

created April 15, 2002; revised 5-6-2009; 9-26-2010

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