Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War |
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Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War
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by Michael Burleigh
Sales Rank: 196767
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Discount: 32 %
List Price: $16.95
$11.53
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 560 pages
Published by: Harper Perennial February 20, 2007
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0060580941
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0060580940
Book Dimensions:
8 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
Weighs: 15.2 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Given the continuing discussion of religious values and secular ideals in American life (most recently in "the war on Christmas"), as well as the international crises brought by the perversion of faith into political ideology and of politics into religious fanaticism, this first in a two-volume work is most timely. In a masterful survey of European history, British historian Burleigh (The Third Reich) demonstrates that Religion and politics are rarely directly opposed, but instead influence, shape and feed off each other in complex ways. Thus, the violent secularist ideologies of Jacobinism, communism and Nazism, he says, were actually surrogate religions that worshipped nation, class and race, while some 19th-century churches involved themselves in the radical politics engendered by industrialization and dispensed with the belief in a literal Hell and Day of Judgment. Burleigh's lengthy introduction is perhaps not the best place to start (with, for example, a discussion of the phrase "immanentizing of the eschaton"), but readers who persist will find this a fascinating, enjoyable and gorgeously written book, whose planned sequel, on the tumultuous religious-political conflicts of the 20th century, should be eagerly anticipated. 16 pages of b&w photographs not seen by PW. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From The New Yorker
Burleigh, a historian of the Third Reich, says that he originally intended to write an account of "political religions," such as Bolshevism. But he came to feel that a study of the intertwining of politics and religionspecifically, Christianityin Europe, from the French Revolution through the First World War, was a necessary preface. He argues that the influence of the Enlightenment has been overrated, and that Religion has thoroughly informed even such avowedly secular movements as the Jacobins' "civic cults" and "eschatological" Marxism. Burleigh intends his book as a corrective to what he sees as our risky forgetfulness about "the ways in which Christianity permeates our culture" and has shaped European civic values. As an intellectual history, the book is digressive but compelling, with sudden detours for the novelist Mary Ward's financial problems or Dostoyevsky's gambling, but its definition of Christian influence is often uselessly broadmust every appeal to transcendence, brotherhood, or national martyrdom hark back to the Bible?
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War (Hardcover)
The starting point for this book lies in Burleigh's prior work on the Third Reich. In his admirable history of the Third Reich, Burleigh stressed that the phenomenon of Nazism could only be understood by seeing it as a 'political religion', a form of faith with structural features similar to religion with the state and certain secular ideals as the subject of worship. This is hardly a new idea, and as Burleigh acknowledges in the introduction to Earthly Powers, it is one that has been explored previously by a number of scholars. In Earthly Powers, Burleigh set out to explore the phenomena of political religions in the "long 19th century", the period from the outbreak of the French Revolution to WWI. Again, Burleigh isn't doing anything particularly novel. The idea that a variety of ideologies - socialism in its various forms, nationalisms, the Victorian idea of Progress, etc. - had structural features and excited faithful adherents like traditional religions, is hardly new. Burleigh is attempting a work of synthesis drawing on an extensive secondary literature on this topic. At the same time, Burleigh discusses also how traditional religous institutions, notably the Papacy, the Anglican Church, and some other religous movements, responded to what amounted to competition from secular ideologies, and also to the enormous challenges imposed by social change and industrialization during the 19th century. He wishes also to explore the ups and downs of the relation between church and state. This is an extremely ambitious project and Burleigh is only partially successful. As a work of synthesis and analysis, this book is a failure. While some of Burleigh's individual descriptions of 'political religions' are very good and often insightful, the book lacks structure and he never really develops a consistent thematic exposition. He begins with chapters on the French Revolution and the ensuing period of reaction but this roughly chronological approach is followed by a series of chapters that aren't exactly chronological in orientation, move from nation to nation, and from topic to topic without much structure. Was there any pattern to the emergence of 'political religions?' Why did some ideas do better than others? Why were nationalist ideas relatively successful? Is there a historical evolution in these alternative faiths over the course of the century? If so, why? Some historians, such as Carl Schorske (see his work on Vienna) and George Dangerfield (see his The Strange Death of Liberal England) see marked changes over the last quarter of the 19th century. Is this correct? If so, why? Much of the book is description, as opposed to analysis. Different sections of the book are uneven in quality, probably a function of which secondary sources Burleigh has relied on to construct those sections. He has a nice, albeit standard, discussion of the French Revolution which apparently draws on the excellent writings of William Doyle. In other sections, Burleigh makes some missteps. For example, he makes fun of the French Third Republic's emphasis on primary education. But, the founders of the Third Republic were doing more than exhibiting naive faith in the power of education. They could see from painful experience in the Franco-Prussian War that it was easier to train a literate mass army. They were aware also that many Frenchmen spoke dialects that were arguably not even French and that many Frenchmen didn't really think of themselves as French. As discussed in Eugen Weber's excellent Peasants into Frenchmen, the huge investment in primary education was a fairly successful exercise in nation building. There does seem to be a theme in Earthly Powers, but it emerges implicitly, rather than explicitly. The recurrent theme appears to be the need of states to capture some form of faith to bolster social and political integration. For example, the efforts of the most radical French Revolutionaries to develop some form of civic religion receives considerable coverage, as does the support of traditional religion by reaction era governments. While the social goals of these two eras and governments were quite different, the instrumental use of faith was similar. An important subtheme is the often ironic response of traditional religions to state action. The Papacy, for example, benefited in odd ways from the French Revolution and on a number of occasions in the 19th century preferred cosying up to the state than responding to the needs of Catholics in different nations. Burleigh leaves one with the impression that the 19th century was essentially period of contending faiths, particularly those of traditional religion versus the emerging 'political religions.' This seems to be part of an effort to distinguish his work from that of other historians who stress the increasing secularization of European society in the 19th century. Burleigh, however, can make this argument only with a very diluted definition of faith that is so broad as to be virtually useless. Burleigh's characterization of the 19th century as a period of competing faiths is also ironic in that Burleigh notes that he turned to 19th century history partly to escape writing about the dreadful events of the 20th century, arguably a real period of conflict among political religions. Burleigh's model of the 19th century, however, seems to be one in which he has transposed at least one essential feature of the 20th century into the 19th century. Burleigh also gives short shrift to one of the most interesting aspects of ideology in the 19th century. The increasing prevalence of pseudo-scientific racism in the late 19th century The quality of writing is also uneven. Burleigh has a taste for complex sentences and unusual words. As demonstrated in his book on the Third Reich, he can be a vivid and powerful writer. In Earthly Powers, however, some of his language is so convoluted as to be an obstacle to understanding. He has also made the mistake of including frequent pot-shots at contemporary issues and figures. Many are apposite but many are merely snide and irrelevant to the issue being discussed. The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm is a favorite target, though Burleigh doesn't name him specifically in the text, an act of moral cowardice. Burleigh has certainly identified an area, or perhaps even areas, that deserve a major overview and work of synthesis-analysis. His book, unfortunately, is not that work.
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