WESTERN CIVILIZATION; Tenth Edition; maintains a firm grounding in political history; while covering intellectual history (particularly the significance of ideas and contributions) to greater and deeper extent than any other text for the course. Known for its accessible writing style; this text appeals to students and instructors alike for its brevity; clarity; and careful selection of content including its enhanced focus on religion and philosophy. Updated with more recent scholarship; the Tenth edition retains many popular features; including comparative timelines; full-color art essays; profiles; and primary source boxes in each chapter. New technology resources (available separately); including CourseMate with interactive eBook; make learning more engaging and bring history concepts to life.
#2505027 in Books David T Smith 2015-11-12 2015-11-12Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.98 x .67 x 5.98l; .0 #File Name: 1107539897283 pagesReligious Persecution and Political Order in the United States Cambridge Studies in Social Theory Religion and Politics
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. High quality scholarship on an important questionBy Leanne PownerReview of Smith D T 2015In Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States; David T. Smith presents a sweeping but meticulously designed and painstakingly researched argument about the role of the state in encouraging or dispersing persecution of religious minorities in both historic and contemporary America.Smith’s particular contributions come from refocusing both the independent and dependent variables commonly used in the study of religious persecution. First; he shifts the dependent variable from the literature’s focus on why particular groups are victimized and when to how the state responds. This implicitly answers the question of when persecution occurs: when the state allows it. But the major contribution of this shift to this study and to the field more generally is that it increases comparability of cases across time. Second; Smith’s carefully defined independent variable – the threat to public order – allows for differentiation in prediction both across and within cases; and both historically and contemporaneously. It potentially allows extension of the argument to non-American contexts as well.One of the major strengths of book is argument’s ability to transcend time and successfully explain not only early persecution of Mormons but modern persecution of Muslims. Most of this derives from the very carefully crafted research design and well-articulated theory. Smith is able to provide nuanced explanations of all of his cases based on contingent combinations of variable values. This kind of highly detailed theory development is rare in qualitative work of all subfields; to the best of my knowledge; it’s particularly rare in American political development; which tends to have less of a focus on variables as such. This book is a worthy model for other work in its subfield.One underdeveloped aspect of the book; I think; is a claim on p 31 that effectively acts as a necessary condition: that civil society’s involvement is necessary for converting prejudice into persecution. Traces of evidence for this claim are throughout the book; but bringing them together would have added an important insight to the book to help understand; for example; why modern anti-Muslim prejudice has failed in most cases to develop into full-blown persecution. Government efforts to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims only go so far; they may explain government behavior but not societal behavior. The role of civil society in helping individuals overcome the collective action problem necessary for persecution to arise is left underdeveloped or at least underspecified.
