Introduction to international relations and religion

Haynes (London Metropolitan Univ.), who leans toward the liberal institutionalist camp, offers relatively objective coverage of the basics for a course on religion and world politics. This book introduces college students to concepts related to religion (transnational religious actors and movements) as it increasingly affects and is affected by international relations, globalization, conflict, and conflict resolution. The author discusses IR theories that until recently downplayed the role of religion, and the recent resurgence of religion despite the "secularization theory" that assumed the collapse of religious identification except for private displays of faith. Haynes offers explanations for religious resurgence, for good and ill, in seven chapters of examples of religion as "soft or cultural power" that influences social and political issues globally. He then highlights religious influence as revealed in the US, Europe (mostly Islam), Africa (mostly Christian), Middle East, South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), and Pacific Asia (Confucianism in China and Buddhism in Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia). The volume has the strengths of a textbook (breadth) and some unavoidable weaknesses (lack of depth in some countries or cultures examined). Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and undergraduates.