​The Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State Volume II: Global Perpectives addresses issues of Religion and State from a multitude of disciplines. The volume begins with the philosophical discussion of perennial issues that have to do with the origin and nature of rights. One question centers on the right to use one’s religious beliefs to enact laws. This discussion alone sets this handbook apart from other handbooks of its type. While addressing these perennial questions, this volume includes authors who interact with the work of John Rawls, Hobbes, Rousseau, and a host of contemporary philosophers. The subsequent sections address the American Constitutional Experiment, religion, state, and law in the Americas.

The Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State Volume I: Theoretical Perspective deals with the relationship between Religion and its long history that has played out throughout time and across the globe. Countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe approach the subject of religion and the state in various ways. While the word religion to westerners usually brings Christianity to mind, in Japan it is Shintoism and Buddhism. Volume II offers chapters on the relationship of both Shintoism and Buddhism to the Japanese state. It is very easy to see how the deeply traditional Japanese citizens may come into conflict with the strictly secular Japanese state. It also contains chapters about mosque and state as well as synagogue and state.

This handbook provides a broad overview of left-wing extremism and its associated key issues and themes. It breaks new ground by assembling a comparative analysis of the phenomenon that is both multidimensional and multidisciplinary. Gathering a wide range of influential scholars who have worked at length in the field of extremism studies from different perspectives, backgrounds, and geographical settings, the Palgrave Handbook of Left-Wing Extremism presents an array of thought-provoking and innovative as well as informative analyses and discussions – both historical and contemporary - about the phenomenon of left-wing extremism and of how researchers conceive of and approach it in their study. The Handbook is designed to be, for the foreseeable future, the reference work for all students, researchers, and general readers interested in achieving a comprehensive understanding of left-wing extremism in all its manifestations, subtleties, and dynamics, and both its current and its potential directions.

The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion draws on the expertise of leading scholars and thinkers to explore the violent origins of culture, the meaning of ritual, and the conjunction of theology and anthropology, as well as secularization, science, and terrorism. Authors assess the contributions of René Girard’s mimetic theory to our understanding of sacrifice, ancient tragedy, and post-modernity, and apply its insights to religious cinema and the global economy. This handbook serves as introduction and guide to a theory of religion and human behavior that has established itself as fertile terrain for scholarly research and intellectual reflection.

The Palgrave Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Culture reflects current approaches to Holocaust literature that open up future thinking on Holocaust representation. The chapters consider diverse generational perspectives—survivor writing, second and third generation—and genres—memoirs, poetry, novels, graphic narratives, films, video-testimonies, and other forms of literary and cultural expression. In turn, these perspectives create interactions among generations, genres, temporalities, and cultural contexts. The volume also participates in the ongoing project of responding to and talking through moments of rupture and incompletion that represent an opportunity to contribute to the making of meaning through the continuation of narratives of the past. As such, the chapters in this volume pose options for reading Holocaust texts, offering openings for further discussion and exploration. The inquiring body of interpretive scholarship responding to the Shoah becomes itself a story, a narrative that materially extends our inquiry into that history.

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century.

This volume approaches the UN as a laboratory of religio-political value politics. Over the last two decades religion has acquired increasing influence in international politics, and religious violence and terrorism has attracted much scholarly attention. But there is another parallel development which has gone largely unnoticed, namely the increasing political impact of peaceful religious actors. With several religious actors in one place and interacting under the same conditions, the UN is as a multi-religious society writ small. The contributors to this book analyse the most influential religious actors at the UN (including The Roman Catholic Church; The Organisation of Islamic Countries; the Russian Orthodox Church). Mapping the peaceful political engagements of religious actors; who they are and how they collaborate with each other - whether on an ad hoc basis or by forming more permanent networks - throwing light at the modus operandi of religious actors at the UN; their strategies and motivations. The chapters are closely interrelated through the shared focus on the UN and common theoretical perspectives, and pursue two intertwined aspects of religious value politics, namely the whys and hows of cross-religious cooperation on the one hand, and the interaction between religious actors and states on the other. Drawing together a broad range of experts on religious actors, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Religion and Politics, International Relations and the UN.

The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences offers a uniquely comprehensive and global overview of the evolution of ideas, concepts and policies within the human sciences. Drawn from histories of the social and psychological sciences, anthropology, the history and philosophy of science, and the history of ideas, this collection analyses the health and welfare of populations, evidence of the changing nature of our local communities, cities, societies or global movements, and studies the way our humanness or ‘human nature’ undergoes shifts because of broader technological shifts or patterns of living. This Handbook serves as an authoritative reference to a vast source of representative scholarly work in interdisciplinary fields, a means of understanding patterns of social change and the conduct of institutions, as well as the histories of these ‘ways of knowing’ probe the contexts, circumstances and conditions which underpin continuity and change in the way we count, analyse and understand ourselves in our different social worlds. It reflects a critical scholarly interest in both traditional and emerging concerns on the relations between the biological and social sciences, and between these and changes and continuities in societies and conducts, as 21st century research moves into new intellectual and geographic territories, more diverse fields and global problematics. ​

The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy is a comprehensive reference guide to the practice of philanthropy across twenty-six nations and regions. In addition, thematic chapters examine cross-national issues to provide an indispensable guide to the latest research in this field. Drawing on theoretical insights from sociology, economics, political science, and psychology, and including a stellar international line-up of leading philanthropy scholars, this essential reference work describes the non-profit sector and analyzes philanthropic endeavours country by country, providing a global overview that covers Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and the Americas. In addition, thematic chapters examine cross-national issues, including the social origins of the non-profit sector and charitable giving; the influence of government support; the role of religion; fiscal incentives; and fundraising to outline how major country-specific differences in governmental, economic, and legal policies for philanthropic actors and nonprofit organizations shape philanthropic giving, demonstrating how country-specific factors may facilitate or inhibit charitable giving. Nonprofit organizations provide important public goods and services in societies across the world. In times of economic crisis, when governments are forced to decrease public spending, these organizations become even more important in meeting demands for these goods and services. But what motivates individuals to voluntarily give away portions of their own financial resources to benefit the public good and to enable nonprofit organizations to carry out their work? Why do people in one country give more frequently and more generously to nonprofit organizations than those in another? The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy provides an indispensable guide to the latest research in philanthropy, the non-profit sector and charitable giving.