Jesus' promise that "the end" draws near has spawned an expectation of that grand event across various religious groups. This volume examines the abiding social issues that surround the continued presence of apocalyptic anticipation by setting them in historical, present-day, and future manifestations. Approaching this fervent expectation from a broad perspective, Gribben and Newport explore the contemporary movements with insightful analysis that provokes discussion and even self-reflection.

"Christendom" refers to a society where Christianity is essentially compulsory. Western Europe, however, has been gradually moving away from Christendom for more than two centuries towards a society where a great variety of religious and non-religious options are available and none is able to claim a privileged position. Written by historians, sociologists and theologians from six countries, and including chapters on most European countries, this study examines this process of increasing pluralism and its implication for the future.

In a world dominated by neo-liberal globalization, Cuba stands apart as a tiny enclave of resistance to the free market economy. Its success -- in the face of massive opposition from the US and the apparent triumph of neoliberalism worlwide -- is remarkable.This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which the government and the people of Cuba have actively resisted neo-liberal globalisation. The author challenges those on the Left who romantically support the Cuban Revolution as well as those who claim that the free market is the ideal economic model for all states. Instead, he presents an intelligent account of the serious and contradictory consequences of Cuba's social, political and economic restructuring.How is it that the Cuban Communist Party continues to exist? To what extent is Cuba affected by global trends and pressures? The author revisits the history of the Cuban Revolution, and the crisis after the fall of Cuba's superpower ally, the Soviet Union, to provide answers to these questions.

The Independent Labour Party began the 1930s as a significant force in dispute with the Labour Party. In 1932, as these conflicts led to a split, the party had more MPs in Scotland than the larger organisation and a membership five times that of the British Communist Party. In the first major study of the Independent Labour Party after disaffiliation from the Labour Party in 1932, Gidon Cohen draws on archival material from Moscow and newly released police and secret service papers as well as other major British archives. In doing so he explores the culture and politics of an organization which he argues, contrary to received scholarship, remained an important component of the British left throughout the 1930s.

This book examines the tension between social mores and religious activities among the laity in the Italian diocese of Bergamo during the later Middle Ages (1265-c.1400). Comparing the religious activities of lay men and women, both rich and poor, across a range of pious and ecclesiastical institutions, including confraternities, hospitals, parishes and the diocese, Roisin Cossar shows how the laity’s access to these institutions increasingly came to depend on their gender and social status during the fourteenth century. At the same time, she argues that all lay people, regardless of gender and social status, viewed themselves as equal members of a lay ordo. The book thus illuminates the complexity of late medieval religious culture, as it simultaneously reflected and challenged secular social values.

Eric Mielants provides a fresh, interdisciplinary interpretation of the origins of modernity in general and of capitalism in particular. He argues that, contrary to established thinking, the "Rise of the West" should not be examined through the lens of the Industrial Revolution or the colonization of the New World but viewed through long-term developments that began in the Middle Ages. A fascinating overview of civilizations in East Asia, South Asia, and northwestern Africa is provided and then systematically compared to developments in Europe at the same time. Utilizing this analysis, the book addresses some of the most important current debates in world history, comparative sociology, political economy, sociological theory and historical sociology. Mielants uncovers the ways that existing theories (such as Marxism, World-Systems Theory, and Smithian Modernization Theory) have suffered from either Eurocentric or limited temporal and spatial analyses, preventing them from fully explaining the reasons behind the emergence of capitalism in Western Europe.

If ours is a cultural moment intensely fascinated with enclosed space—the cubicles of our workplaces, the confessionals of our churches, the bedrooms of reality television, and all the various closets we come out of and retreat into—our fascination isn’t entirely new. This book argues that the religious literature of the late Middle Ages articulates with great subtlety and vividness the extent to which all being is to some extent enclosed being. In other words, we’re all in the closet, and that might be a good thing. Through extended readings of English, French, and Italian writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Claustrophilia shows that medieval enclosures actually make room for desires and communities that a poetics of pure openness would exclude. When God holds and confines, revelation is in the boundaries and not beyond them. Accordingly, this book says, love your closet; it is only through what holds and defines us that we can know and love the world.

Erotic Coleridge charts Coleridge's prolific creation of love poems from early flirtatious verse to poems about marital incompatibility, the blank faces of young women fearing for their reputations, the exaltation of falling in love, the spoken and sung voices of women, the pain of jealousy, and late meditations on how to live with the waning of love. In his prose he responds to Parliamentary debates about punishing adulteresses and gives advice about how marriage can warp the soul. In his sensual exuberance and his ethics of reverencing the individuality of other persons, Coleridge attends closely to the lives of women.

In this clever and entertaining look at the United States and religious freedom, Robert C. Fuller introduces us to religious revolutionaries who, in very unique ways, shaped American religious tradition and fought to establish new forms of spirituality. Chronological in scope, Religious Revolutionaries takes us from Puritanism and Calvinism in America's colonial period to present-day belief systems. We meet religious rebels who are widely recognized, such as Thomas Jefferson, the architect of our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. We meet Andrew Jackson Davis, America's first trance channeler and forceful champion of the inner divinity of every person. We are introduced to Mary Daly, who openly confronted the sexist bias of most organized religion. We also learn about trailblazers such as Phineas P. Quimby, who challenged the Protestant theology of his day and whose ideas became the foundation for Christian Science philosophy, and James Cone, the bold spokesperson for black power and black spirituality. Religious Revolutionaries is a page-turner that focuses on the people who shaped religion in the United States, but it is also a captivating journey through the history of our diverse country.

Although religious unrest had been brewing in Western Europe long before Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, historians view this event as the tipping point that shattered the unity of Medieval Catholic civilization. Disillusioned by Church bureaucracy and a papal schism, and encouraged by the formation of early nation states and the rise of Renaissance Humanism, Western Europe was primed for an alternative to the old order. The reforms of what eventually became the Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and Radical Anabaptists called for a return to scripture and a focus on individual faith. The counterreformation on the part of the Catholic Church brought about a new focus on spirituality that culminated in the Council of Trent. The event that Linder calls "Midwife to the Modern World" still resonates today, in modern spiritual revivals, religious debates, and newer Church reforms. Illuminated by primary source documents from the period, a timeline, a glossary, and biographies of key figures, this volume is an ideal reference source for any student of the past, and the present.

In the medieval period, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (the mawlid) was celebrated in popular narratives and ceremonies that expressed the religious agendas and aspirations of ordinary Muslims, including women. This book examines the Mawlid from its origins to the present day and provides a new insight into how an aspect of everyday Islamic piety has been transformed by modernity. The book gives a window into the religious lives of medieval Muslim women, rather than focusing on the limitations that were placed on them and shows how medieval popular Islam was coherent and meaningful, not just a set of deviations from scholarly norms. Concise in both historical and textual analysis, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of contemporary Muslim devotional practices and will be of great interest to postgraduate students and researchers of Islam, religious studies and medieval studies.

The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854 turns upside down the traditional way of thinking about one of the most important laws ever passed in American history. The act that created Nebraska and Kansas also, in effect, abolished the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in the region since 1820. This bow to local control outraged the nation and led to vicious confrontations, including Kansas’s subsequent mini-civil war. The essays in this volume shift the focus from the violent and influential reaction of “Bleeding Kansas” to the role that Nebraska played in this decisive moment. Essays from both established and new scholars examine the historical context and significance of this statute. They treat American political culture of the 1850s; American territorial history; the roles of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and Frederick Douglass in the creation and implementation of the law; the reactions of African Americans to the act; and the comparative impact on Nebraskans and Kansans. At the 150th anniversary of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, as it came to be known, these scholars reexamine the political, social, and personal contexts of this act and its effect on the course of American history.

Black Communists Speak on Scottsboro, an account of a neglected chapter in the story of the Scottsboro saga, gives voice to a segment of the African American community that has often been ignored or distorted: black Communists.

This book examines the dynamics of the American party system and explores how contemporary American politics was formed. Specifically, it asks how the Democrats could become sufficiently competitive in the American North as to be able to construct a national political majority. It rejects the conventional account, based on 'realignment theory', that between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Revolution, the base level of support for the Democratic party varied greatly from one era to another. Instead, by distinguishing between the 'building blocks' available to the Democrats in coalition formation and the aggregation of those 'blocks' into an actual coalition, the author shows that there was much less variation over time in the available 'blocks' than is usually argued. Neither the economic depression of 1893 nor the New Deal had the impact on the party system that most political scientists claim.

Of all the grave crises in Northern Ireland's history, the events of Bloody Sunday are perhaps the most notorious. The subject of an independent inquiry that is the longest and most expensive the British government has ever undertaken, this yet to be resolved issue continues to be one of the most significant events in the recent history of the Troubles. This book tackles the subject from a new angle that covers both the political and psychological aspects of what happened. Based on extensive interviews with families whose relatives were killed by British soldiers, it is a record of the trauma that they have suffered. Setting Bloody Sunday in social, political and historical contexts, the authors examine the events of the day itself, the aftermath, and the relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, mourning and storytelling. They conclude with accounts about state and community responses to the trauma, and the impact and implications of the Saville Inquiry, which has allowed family members to express publicly their stories about the events of Bloody Sunday.
Patrick Hayes is a clinical social worker and has worked for 20 years in private practice as a psychotherapist. Much of his work involves the treatment of trauma related disorders. He holds a degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a PhD from Queens University, Belfast. Jim Campbell is a senior lecturer at the School of Social Work, Queens University, Belfast where he teaches and publishes in the area of mental health social work and the impact of the Troubles on service delivery.