Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century - Hardcover

Sedgwick, Mark J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195152972 ISBN 13: 9780195152975

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Against the Modern World is the first history of Traditionalism, an influential yet surprisingly little-known twentieth century anti-modernist movement. Involving a number of important, yet often secret, religious groups in the West and Islamic world, it affected mainstream and radical politics in Europe and religious studies in the United States. Emerging from the 'discovery' in the West of non-Western religious writings, at a time in the nineteeth century when progressive intellectuals had lost faith in the ability of Christianity to deliver religious and spiritual truth, it was fuelled by the widespread religious scepticism that followed World War I. It found its voice in Rene Guenon, a French writer who rejected modernity as a dark age, and sought to reconstruct the Perennial Philosophy - the fundamental truth uniting all the world's religions. Mark Sedgwick reveals how this pervasive intellectual movement helped shape major events in twentieth century religious life, politics and scholarship - all the while remaining invisible to outsiders.

About this title

Review:

Mark Sedgwick's book, Against the Modern World, was published in 2009, but it is compulsive reading for commentary on the contemporary world, beset as it is with the rise of the traditional far right as well as far right religious fundamentalisms. The book spells out some intellectual influences on both traditions of thought. (Alison Assiter, Feminist Dissent)

Sedgwick's scholarship regarding Traditionalists themselves is exhaustive and admirable ... Sedgwick contributes an introduction and overview of an otherwise little-known, but important, moment in modern intellectual history. (Colin Beech, Journal of World History)

... a wealth of information on the lives of the Traditionalists ... This book is a valuable companion to their works, a comprehensive and neutrally presented archive of the personalities and authors, along with their political activities and personal lives. (Financial Times Magazine - Weekend)

Against the Modern World is a valuable and comprehensive effort by a non-Traditionalist to chronicle this fascinating and often troubling movement in its entirety. (Financial Times Magazine - Weekend)

About the Author:

Mark Sedgwick is head of the Islamic Cultures and Societies Research Unit at Aarhus University in Denmark and is the author of Sufism: The Essentials (2000).

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0195152972
• ISBN 13: 9780195152975
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 370