I’ve just received my copy of Michael Burleigh’s “Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to al-Qaeda” from amazon.com.uk (It has yet to be published in the U.S.) This book is a follow-on to his exceptional “Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, From the French Revolution to the Great War.” Burleigh is also the author of “The Third Reich: A New History.” In a recent post, I quoted liberally from his op-ed in The Times, which begins this way:

Nothing much separates the horror that modern Islamists express towards western urban industrial society and the cultural pessimism that was pervasive on the European right in the late 19th century — the toxic pool from which fascism emerged in the aftermath of the great war.Most European fascist movements were products of visceral national grievance; a colossal sense of collective victimhood at the hands of the Israeli David or the western Goliath is also a key motivating force behind radical Islam.

In the preface (written in January 2006) to “Sacred Causes” (the only part of the book I’ve read), Burleigh cites some reasons for optimism:
. . . whether in Britain or once-liberal Holland, there are definite signs that the worm has turned, suggesting that ordinary people—as opposed to politicians with inner-city Muslim constituents—are not ready to tolerate indefinitely those who wish to eradicate homosexuals, reduce women to second-class citizens, or openly call for the murder of Danish carttonists, Dutch politicians or Jews and Israelis . . . Anyone with those views is irreconcilable with our civilisation and should take the opportunity to leave before history repeats itself. There are encouraging signs that the Churches—and in particular the Catholic Church of Benedict XVI —are ready to make certain non-negotiable positions clear rather than to mouth the platitudes of a discredited multiculturalism that only exists in the Left university and within local government, neither of them at the cutting edge of European thinking.

Burleigh is also encouraged by the fact that “it is increasingly secular intellectuals, like Regis Debray or Umberto Eco, who are mounting the defence of Christianity against silly politically correct attempts to deny or marginalise it.”

Whew! I’m looking forward to what promises to be a great read.