Rating: 
Summary: Comprehending the nearly incomprehensible
Review: Attempts a cohesive sociological analysis of the putative causal relationship of religious piety and extreme violence, on the premise that it is crucially important that we know if the two are related.
If they are not related, we have a largely incomprehensible phenomenon with the rise of terrorism among religous groups and the use of religious justification for violence. If they are related, it becomes more difficult to explain the use of non-religious rationales for violence and terror.
I think Juergensmeyer does a first class job of research here and a really excellent job of pulling together his findings and making sense of the way violence arises at the extremes of a wide variety of religions. Most importantly, he identifies the conditions under which piety "becomes" violence in some sense, based on the broad idea that we use religion to make sense of the world, and under extreme conditions, symbols of war and expressions of violence do indeed make sense of our experience.
I would like to see work building further on this general framework, I think it would be extremely productive in understanding patterns of violence and developing workable solutions.
The one weakness of this analysis for me was its implicit equation of religion with the search for meaning. We tend to think of religion in that role, but I believe it is important not to confuse the way we often use religion with its many varied expressions and uses. Juergensmeyer's analysis DOES apply to any cultural process that operates to make sense of our experience, including atheist quasi-religions and potentially even meaningful non-theist institutions and practices.
That is, I agree up to a point with the critics here who complained that this book's analysis of piety and violence seems to ignore the systematic use of violence by institutions we don't generally consider religious. However, I don't think it takes much to extend the author's analysis to these other institutions. Some of the conditions under which MJ theorizes that we view a war as having cosmic significance and thus relating piety and violence:
1. The struggle is perceived as a defense of basic identity and dignity.
2. Defeat is unthinkable.
3. The struggle is blocked in practical terms and no real world solution appears to be viable.
With these conditions in place, in theory, seeing a struggle as a cosmic war becomes a very real solution psychologically for making sense of the desperate conditions and finding hope in them. The process of making an enemy into some version of Satan begins often with:
1. very *real* problems that become interpreted in terms of the whole world going awry.
2. Ordinary options for resolving the real problems simply aren't available to us.
3. We then begin the process of symbollizing the enemy as forces of evil, so that being part of a divine solution becomes part of our hope.
4. Coming back from the brink of desperation becomes possible by symbolic acts of power showing that the unwinnable war can be winnable in its cosmic form.
I'm extracting the conclusions from a very detailed and thoughtful analysis.
I think this analysis makes a very important contribution to our understanding of violence and terrorism but this book is also of great value for its framework for understanding the relationship of culture and individual action, and what it implies about how our institutions, practices, and discourse shape our thinking and behavior. This is sociology doing what sociology is best used for, understanding how human social behavior relates to individual thoughts and actions.
Rating:
Summary: I thought they were just jealous of us
Review: First, let me state that this book does not excuse or justify terrorism in any way, but instead examines different terrorist groups from around the globe and finds that they share a surprisingly common mindset. This book will be useful to anyone who is genuinely curious about what motivates terrorists, but will not be helpful to people who consider terrorists to be so evil that their mindset isn't even worth examining.In this book, Mark Jurgensmeyer, a Sociology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara examines the social and cultural motives of terrorist organizations that span a variety of religions including Christianity (European and American), Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, and the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult in Japan, which he mistakenly attributes as a sect of Buddhism. Jurgensmeyer examines the motives of terrorists in all of these religions in a series of interviews that resembles journalism more than a scientific study. Jurgensmeyer arrives at some powerful conclusions that refute the notion that terrorists are motivated to kill because they are jealous of the target country's wealth and institutions. Instead, Jurgensmeyer finds that even from such diverse ethnic groups and belief systems, terrorists share a common mindset that includes fear of cultural or national annihilation, fear of impending marginalization, and an increasing sense that their fears and grievances can only be settled in an apocalyptic "all or nothing" scenario. Jurgensmeyer concludes that while other factors such as forced impoverishment and economic doom play a role in motivating terrorists, they are not as significant as the above named factors. Two other issues common to terrorists around the globe, however are a need for sexual control (i.e. for men to institutionally or symbolically control the sexuality of women), and an urge for individual, cultural, or national recognition resulting in a spectacular and murderous "demonstration" of their identity. Among Jurgensmeyer's more frightening conclusions is that by the time terrorists develop an apocalyptic mindset, they are almost never able to revert to conventional modes of settling their grievances; in other words, they remain terrorists until they die. While Jurgensmeyer's study is informative, it also contains some limitations. To begin, with Jurgensmeyer never addresses the underlying political, or economic policies that produce the terrorist mind, nor does he examine patterns of religious development that-once formed-exacerbate it. For the former you might want to look at Tariq Ali's "Clash of Fundamentalisms", or Noam Chomsky's "9/11", and for the latter, you may want to check out Karen Armstrong's "The Battle for God". Because Jurgensmeyer focuses on terrorist groups, he also does not address the issue of state terrorism (terrorist acts that the military forces of powerful nations perpetrate against the civilians of weaker ones). Finally, I wish this book had been organized a little differently since Jurgensmeyer repeats many of the same conclusions in each chapter that references a different terrorist group. These issues aside, this is an important and informative book that should be high on the list of anyone who is genuinely curious about why America was attacked on September 11th, 2001.
Rating: 
Summary: "The global rise of religious violence"
Review: I enjoyed reading TERROR IN THE MIND OF GOD because it attemps to profile and analyze the more extreme groups and forms of thought around the world. It could not have done better for a cover--featuring the three poster children of terrorism: Shoko Asahara, Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden. All of the world's major religions are represented here in their most hardcore forms: Anti-abortionists; Christian Identity; Christian Reconstructionists; Neonazis; the IRA; Democratic Unionist Party; Jewish fundamentalists like Yoel Lerner, Meir Kahane, Yigal Amir, Baruch Goldstein; Islamic fundamentalist organizations like HAMAS, Hizbollah and Al Qaeda; Sihk separatists who want to turn India's Punjab state into 'Khalistan'/'Land of the Pure'; and finally Japan's Buddhist Aum Shinrikyo cult. Juergensmeyer provides a great deal of research on these groups, and even goes the extra step by interviewing members of them who either defected or are imprisoned. It offers some reasons why violent religious groups form and commit acts of carnage: A great fear of cultural assimilation and loss of ethnic identity; economic and sexual distress; violent symbolism used in sacred texts such as the Bible, Koran and Bhagavad Gita; and the need for disenfranchised males to symbolically or actually control women's sexuality or other sexual expression traditionally or culturally viewed as deviant. Certain days of the year are chosen for attacks for symbolic value. For instance McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City on 4/19 "Patriot's Day." In the historical context, April 19 was the date of the minutemen's battle with British forces at Lexington, the Nazi attack on the Warsaw ghetto and the destruction of the Branch Davidian compound by Federal Agents at Waco in 1993. The Purim festival was chosen for Baruch Goldstein's assault on Muslim worshippers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs because that holiday celebrates Jewish vengeance on their enemies. However, there are a good number of problems with this book. It is written from a liberal, secularist and statist perspective. It completely ingores government terrorist action against civillian populations to keep the peace and root out political foes around the world. The book also fails to recognize the validity of the statement "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." At no point does Juergensmeyer even think that despite the backwardness of these groups, they have real issues and complaints that are not being addressed by the world community, and that free-market, materialist globalism and mass-multiculturalism are not what they are cracked up to be.
Rating: 
Summary: The real face of Terrorism
Review: I have been in high level protective services for over forty years. I have written books about "Executive Protection" and have taught courses in Terrorism. This is one of the very best books I have read about the real face of terrorism. Why? Because Professor Juergensmeyer goes beyond the trite sterotypes that earlier books have rehashed over and over. There are new lessons to be learned. One lesson is that terrorism is man made and it is men dealing with their own unresolved issues "in the name of God" who attempt to foist their own beliefs on the masses. This book takes a critical thinking approach to megalomanic "czars" whose ultimate goal is self promotion and power. In our "McDonaldized" and "MTV", world it is people like those discussed by Professor Juergensmeyer who have no real purpose than to destroy anything for which they have no use. It is not religion, nor is it "God's Purpose" but their own distorted sense of faulted values that motivate them. Understanding the motives of these people will give us new tools to combat them. If we learned any lessons as a result of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings it is that the anti-terroism methods of the past need to be refreshed with logical thinking, new training methods, and new approaches. One new approach is suggested by reading this book. That approach is to "know who you are fighting and to what extent he will go." We cannot afford to again underestimate what the mind of a radical fanatic can concieve and to what extent he will go. We are not fighting a religious war, we are fighting against those who would sacrifice "others" and offer them martyrhood though methods that a reasonable thinking man finds impossible. No crime is too heinous or wretchedly wrong for the people profiled by Professor Juergensmeyer. That is the main lesson of history overlooked by "terrorism experts" previous to the bombings in New York and Washington, D.C. in 2001. It took an academician to teach us what we must see. It takes critical and logical thinking based on what he has to tell us to catalyze new approaches to old enemies. "Terror in the Mind of God, The Global Rise of Religious Violence" will be required reading at the newly founded California University of Protection and Intelligence Management where I teach.
Rating:
Summary: Explains how extremism in religion has led to violence
Review: I highly recommend this book to everyone because of its relevance to current global religious violence. This book offers chilling insight into the intimate relationship between religion and violence. The author analyzes terrorist groups from a psychological and cultural perspective. His countless case studies and personal interviews with violence perpetrators clearly depict the religious extremists' cosmic struggle against secular government. In defense of their faith, true believers perform horrific acts of violence against symbols of political and financial power, acts that are supported and justified by their religious ideologies. Ironically, they view their acts of violence not as attacks, but as responses to the enemy's oppression. Case studies are worldwide and run the gamut from the atrocities performed during the Nine Crusades in 1095 up until the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The chapter 'Reaching the Audience' illustrates that without an audience, terrorism would not exist. In the last decade of the twentieth century, religious terrorism has become global in two senses. The choices of terrorist targets have been transnational. For example, the Egyptians and Palestinians bombed the World Trade Center in New York City to protest against secular governments in the Middle East. Furthermore, the incidents have had global impact in large part due to the worldwide, instantaneous coverage by transnational news media. The global dimensions of terrorism's organization make it so powerful that even the United Nations is not equipped to deal with worldwide terrorism. A consortia of nations has come together to deal with forces of violence on an international scale. This is a book of substance, and the author should be commended for his excellence in providing such a complete in depth look into the world of religious violence. The author's conclusion, however, fails to persuade that the cure for religious violence may ultimately lie in religion itself.
Rating:
Summary: Not all-inclusive, but still very important
Review: I'll keep this review short as the thoughts below cover a wide range of relevant points about this book... First of all...no single book will be able to adequately cover the topic of terrorism. That in mind, this book has its flaws and misses some things, but I think it is a valuable part of the literature on terrorism. This shouldn't be the only book on terrorism you read, but it should be one of them. Lastly, this book is written as a political science book. It is a comparative case study approach to terrorism. That's what separates it from a lot of the books on terrorism that are out there these days, so you shouldn't expect ideology-based writing here. The author starts of with some assumptions, and works towards explaining them. That said...this is a very good book. I hope many people get the chance to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Not all-inclusive, but still very important
Review: I'll keep this review short as the thoughts below cover a wide range of relevant points about this book... First of all...no single book will be able to adequately cover the topic of terrorism. That in mind, this book has its flaws and misses some things, but I think it is a valuable part of the literature on terrorism. This shouldn't be the only book on terrorism you read, but it should be one of them. Lastly, this book is written as a political science book. It is a comparative case study approach to terrorism. That's what separates it from a lot of the books on terrorism that are out there these days, so you shouldn't expect ideology-based writing here. The author starts of with some assumptions, and works towards explaining them. That said...this is a very good book. I hope many people get the chance to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Mission from God
Review: Juergensmeyer attempts in this book to find common ground in religious terrorists of many different stripes. His begins by looking at terrorists from five religious groups--Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism. His Buddhist example, the Aum Shinrikyo cult attack on the Tokyo subway system is probably the weakest example. He may have been better served to have a separate section on cults such as this and others like the Branch Davidians. They seem to have as much in common with each other as with other groups within their religions. He next looks for common themes from all of his examples. He does well when he explains how all of the terrorists believe they are warriors in a larger cosmic drama of good and evil. He does less well in separating the parts played by religion and politics. For example, was Timothy McVeigh a religious terrorist or a political terrorist? All in all, this is an engrossing, if disturbing study. We are left feeling that there will be little relief from religious terrorism in the near future. Those seeking more insight on this subject should read "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer, which examines these topics among Mormon Fundamentalists.
Rating:
Summary: Explains violence in the name of God
Review: Juergensmeyer offers a cultural and ideological analysis of the emergence of global religious violence that is today championed by communities that foster "cultures of violence" and terror. Chapter-length journalistic case studies explore Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Sikh, and Aum Shinrikyo religious terrorism. The author interprets religiously motivated acts of mind-numbing violence that lack a clear military objective as theater, especially timed, scripted, and staged against the symbols of political or financial power such as The World Trade Center or The Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. True believers wage a cosmic war as a defense of the faith where defeat is unthinkable. They adopt rites of violence and commit themselves to heroic acts of martyrdom and the destruction of their demonized enemies. The chapter "Warrior Power" employs a psychoanalytic view of terrorist careers as a means to symbolic empowerment for groups of marginalized young men who face uncertain paths to manhood, sexual identity, and conventional lives. This books offers chilling insight into the worldview of disparate cultures of religious violence, the inevitability of such cosmic battles, and the unending fanaticism of true believers. The author's conclusion, however, fails to persuade that new forms of religion may arise to cure religious violence. All levels.
Rating:
Summary: Corrects the Neglect of Sikh Religious Violence
Review: Juergensmeyer's book serves to remedy the undeserved neglect Sikh religious violence has received from the plethora of books on religious extremism published since 9/11. The author views these acts of violence as "forms of public performance rather than aspects of political strategy . . . symbolic statements aimed at providing a sense of empowerment to desperate communities."
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