Holy Wars and Holy Alliance - (Religion, Culture, and Public Life) by Manlio Graziano (Hardcover)

About the Book

A close look at the return of religion to international politics.

Book Synopsis

Religions are reemerging in the social, political, and economic spheres previously occupied and dominated by secular institutions and ideologies. In the wake of crises exposing the limits of secular modernity, religions have again become significant players in domestic and international politics. At the same time, the Catholic Church has sought a "holy alliance" among the world's faiths to recentralize devout influence, an important, albeit little-noticed, evolution in international relations.

Holy Wars and Holy Alliance explores the nation-state's current crisis in order to better understand the religious resurgence's implications for geopolitics. Manlio Graziano looks at how the Catholic Church promotes dialogue and action linking world religions, and examines how it has used its material, financial, and institutional strength to gain power and increase its profile in present-day international politics. Challenging the idea that modernity is tied to progress and secularization, Graziano documents the "return" or the "revenge" of God in all facets of life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as once predicted. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work today, he argues, we must appreciate the nature of religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage.

Review Quotes

Graziano has written an important, and fascinating study of the role of religions in the political sphere.--Joshua Paetkau "Useful Illusions"

In a clear and luminous way, Graziano demonstrates how religions, in the plural, came to reinvest in the political sphere and provides his readers with a full comprehension of the geopolitical dynamics at work in our world today.--Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Columbia University

It has become commonplace that the old certainties that governed postwar politics are dissolving in the heat of populism and nationalism. Graziano argues that the change is in fact deeper than this: having been thoroughly secularized after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, global politics is once more coming to terms with the power of religion. He makes his case with learning and vigor. By writing about geopolitics in the light of religion and religion in the light of geopolitics, Graziano has enhanced our understanding of both.--Adrian Wooldridge, coauthor of God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World

About the Author

Manlio Graziano teaches geopolitics and geopolitics of religions at Sorbonne University, the American Graduate School in Paris, and the Geneva Institute of Geopolitical Studies. His books include The Failure of Italian Nationhood: The Geopolitics of a Troubled Identity (2010), Essential Geopolitics: A Handbook (2011), and In Rome We Trust: The Rise of Catholics in American Political Life (2017).