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All the Kingdoms of the World Summary

All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism by Kevin Vallier (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University)

A fresh assessment of Catholic integralism and other new and radical religious alternatives to liberal democracy. According to a common narrative, the twentieth century spelled the end of faith-infused political movements. Their ideologies, like Catholic integralism, would soon be forgotten. Humans were finally learning to keep religion out of politics. Or were we? In the twenty-first century, nations as diverse as Russia, India, Poland, and Turkey have seen a revival of religious politics, and many religious movements in other countries have proved similarly resilient. A new generation of political theologians passionately reformulate ancient religious doctrines to revolutionize modern political life. They insist that states recognize the true religion, and they reject modern liberal ideals of universal religious freedom and church-state separation. In this book, philosopher Kevin Vallier explores these new doctrines, not as lurid oddities but as though they might be true. The anti-liberal doctrine known as Catholic integralism serves as Vallier's test case. Yet his approach naturally extends to similar ideologies within Chinese Confucianism and Sunni Islam. Vallier treats anti-liberal thinkers with the respect that liberals seldom afford them and offers more moderate skeptics of liberalism a clear account of the alternatives. Many liberals, by contrast, will find these doctrines frightening and strange but of enduring interest. Vallier invites all his readers on a unique intellectual adventure, encouraging them to explore unfamiliar ideals through the lenses of theology, philosophy, politics, economics, and history.

All the Kingdoms of the World Reviews

This splendid book has something for everyone. For religious conservatives who question the separation of church and state, Vallier offers compelling arguments against their integration, drawing from Catholic theology, Church history, and considerations of social stability. For liberals, Vallier offers a bracing view of a powerful current stream of anti-liberal thought that should shatter any complacency about taking liberal political assumptions for granted. For people of all religious and political orientations, Vallier offers a rigorous method for assessing political proposals that does not presuppose liberal principles, but can serve as a basis for all to engage each other in serious discussion. In our politically polarized age, that is a major achievement. Elizabeth Anderson, Max Shaye Professor of Public Philosophy, University of Michigan
Kevin Vallier thoughtfully makes the case against post-liberal political doctrines, focusing on Catholic integralism. But he also pursues reconciliation with conservatives through his striking proposal for non-liberal charter cities within the framework of a liberal state. This book is a daring and original effort to adapt liberal political theory to a post-liberal era. Yoram Hazony, author of Conservatism: A Rediscovery
Integralism holds that state coercion is to be used to forward a religion's vision of the supernatural good. It is deeply statist and deeply illiberal; and, yet, it arguably follows from the teachings of Roman Catholicism. In All the Kingdoms of the World, Kevin Vallier does the great service of taking this position seriously-of presenting it with care, so that its attractions are plain. He also does the great service of showing why it nevertheless profoundly fails in its own terms as an account of a just, stable political order and how its failure provides lessons for the prospects of other emerging anti-liberal statisms. The book is intellectually invigorating, theoretically rigorous, and politically timely. I am grateful that it was written, and that it was Vallier who wrote it! Mark C. Murphy, McDevitt Professor of Religious Philosophy, Georgetown University
This is an excellent and important book, starting with its defense of classical liberalism over Catholic integralism and indeed illiberalism more generally...likely to be one of this year's books that turns out to really matter. * Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution *

About Kevin Vallier (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University)

Kevin Vallier is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of four monographs, five edited volumes, and over fifty peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles. His books include Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation (2014), Must Politics Be War? Restoring Our Trust in the Open Society (Oxford, 2019), and Trust in a Polarized Age (Oxford, 2020).

Additional information

CINB0C2ZRMDSZG
9780197611371
0197611370
All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism by Kevin Vallier (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University)
Used - Good
Hardback
Oxford University Press Inc
20231004
320
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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