A dozen or more books on NRMs, apocalyptic, and violence
Lifton’s is among the best narratives of the Aum Shinriku attempt to poison the Tokyo subway system. Reader’s is a scholarly tour-de-force on the religious roots of Aum’s violence.
Again, Spence offers the narrative, Shih investigates the details of Taiping ideology.
Contemporary American extremism. Two of various possible books from Barkun and Aho. Kerry Noble’s book is a classic inside view / case study of a violent movement, the Covenant, Sword & Arm of the Lord, and its complex prophet.
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I requested the help of a group of scholars of new religious movements as I was formulating this list, and will include some of their helpful comments and urther reading suggestions in a follow up post. I haven’t counted, but I may have exceeded two dozen recommendations in h]this post alone/. The topic is not only well-researched in NRM circles, but also IMO signally important at this time.
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Tim Furnish:
April 30th, 2015 at 2:25 pm
Charles,
Well, perhaps my “only somewhat overemphatic” statement was just that–but you sure like to quote it!
How about fiction books on the Mahdi? Not just Joel Rosenberg’s “The Twelfth Imam,” but N. Lee Wood, “Looking for the Mahdi;” Nick Carter, “Day of the Mahdi;” Margo Dockendorf, “The Mahdi;” and, best of all, AJ Quinnell, “The Mahdi.”
Now, back to writing my paper for the BU conference! See you there!
larrydunbar:
April 30th, 2015 at 9:54 pm
“Well, perhaps my “only somewhat overemphatic” statement was just that–but you sure like to quote it!”
But “Muslim messianic movements are to fundamentalist uprisings what nuclear weapons are to conventional ones:”, but they are both MAD, right?
Charles Cameron:
April 30th, 2015 at 10:19 pm
Hi Tim:
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I do indeed like the quote, even though on a literal level you’re comparing incomparables — it gets across the idea that the proclamation of a Mahdi would be a major accelerant / force multiplier like nothing else!
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And then there’s Dune!
larrydunbar:
April 30th, 2015 at 10:32 pm
“And then there’s Dune!”
Really, dune?
What the hell does that mean?
You seemed to be based in logic, but I am now less sure.
Charles Cameron:
April 30th, 2015 at 11:47 pm
Tim had asked:
I was responding that Frank Herbert’s Dune has a Mahdi — Muad’dib is the Mahdi of the Fremen on Arrakis. And there’s also Muad-dib’s jihad (and also the unrelated “Butlerian Jihad”) for good measure.
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So it’s a very different genre, but in some respects (desert planet, ecology, hydrology, and many Islamic terms and references) astonishingly prescient in the topics he researched in 1965, when you look at current affairs today, half a century later.
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The Dune wikia reports of Muad’dib’s Jihad:
That’s pretty ferocious, way beyond Tim’s comment that I quoted above.
The wikia also notes:
Tim Furnish:
May 1st, 2015 at 2:16 pm
Yes, of course the Mahdi/messiah is a major component of the Duniverse. But it’s not specifically about Mahdism, as are the books I adduced.
Tim Furnish:
May 1st, 2015 at 2:18 pm
It’s also interesting in the “Dune” prequels written by Herbert’s son and that other chap (Anderson? I’m too lazy to walk downstairs and look at the bookshelves) the humans of the future fight a “jihad” against the robots/thinking machines trying to wipe them out, while the latter wage a “machine Crusade.”
Charles Cameron:
May 1st, 2015 at 8:11 pm
Yes, that’s the “Butlerian Jihad”: it’s mentioned in the first of the Frank Herbert series.
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FWIW, I’ve been warned off the non-FH books by a notable fan who is also an intel guy & prizewinning writer on info-war with field experience in the ME. In his view, the whole FH original series comprises a massive & excellent single treatise..