Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Modernity and Religion
1. The Death of God
2. The Return of God
3. God's Revenge
Part II. The Resacralization of Politics in the 1970s
4. Religion and Power in the 1970s
5. The Islamization of the Iranian Revolution
6. The Geopolitical Reinvention of the Holy War
7. The Catholicization of Modernity
Part III. The Holy War
8. The Clash of Civilizations
9. The Clash of Ignorance
10. The Bloody Borders of Religion
11. Terrorism
Part IV. The Holy Alliance
12. Dialogue Among Civilizations
13. The Catholic Alliance
14. The Holy Alliance
15. All Roads Lead to Rome
Conclusion: Religion and International Politics in the Twenty-First Century
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Religions are reemerging in the social, political, and economic spheres previously occupied and dominated by secular institutions and ideologies. In the wake of crises exposing the limits of secular modernity, religions have again become significant players in domestic and international politics. At the same time, the Catholic Church has sought a "holy alliance" among the world's faiths to recentralize devout influence, an important, albeit little-noticed, evolution in international relations.
Holy Wars and Holy Alliance explores the nation-state's current crisis in order to better understand the religious resurgence's implications for geopolitics. Manlio Graziano looks at how the Catholic Church promotes dialogue and action linking world religions, and examines how it has used its material, financial, and institutional strength to gain power and increase its profile in present-day international politics. Challenging the idea that modernity is tied to progress and secularization, Graziano documents the "return" or the "revenge" of God in all facets of life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as once predicted. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work today, he argues, we must appreciate the nature of religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage.