American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris HedgesReview by: Walter Russell MeadForeign Affairs, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 2007), p. 171Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20032310 .

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Recent Books

politics would be well advised to read these books anyway.

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War onAmerica. BY CHRIS HEDGES. Free Press, 2007, 256 pp. $25.00.

In this passionately argued and deeply felt but ultimately unconvincing book, the former New York Times foreign correspon dent Hedges argues that the Christian right is a danger to U.S. democracy. At his best when pointing to examples of charlatanism, hypocrisy, and greed among the wackier televangelists, Hedges is less successftil when he argues that the leader ship of the Christian right is a powerful, centralized organization poised to impose a totalitarian dictatorship on the United States in the wake of either more terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 or a great eco nomic depression. In fact, this leadership is a good deal less influential than Hedges supposes, and it faces strong opposition inside the world of conservative Chris tianity by far too many influential and respected figures to control conservative

American Protestantism, much less to impose radical views on a society in which evangelicals of all descriptions remain a distinct minority. Hedges also appears not to have studied the history of religious revivals in American life. From the Great

Awakening of the eighteenth century through the waves of religious enthusiasm that repeatedly washed over the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, religious movements have ultimately strengthened rather than un dermined the democratic and pluralistic character of American society. That is not always what the religious leaders of the day intended or hoped, but the small-d democratic values of American

popular religion are one of the most durable features of American life.

Western Europe PHILIP H. GORDON

Why the French Don't Like Headscarves. Islam, the State, and Public Space. BY JOHN R. BOWEN. Princeton University Press, 2006, 328 pp. $27.95.

In March 2004, France's parliament passed a law banning students from wearing "conspicuous" religious symbols in public primary and secondary schools.

The law mentioned no particular religion and applied to all, but it was rightly seen as targeting the wearing of head scarves by Muslim girls, a matter of controversy in France's famously secular school system since the late 1980s. Bowen seeks to explain why France hardly the only country in the world divided by religious issues-has gone to such lengths to protect secularism in schools. He argues that France's particular approach to this challenge is deeply rooted in the country's "Re publican" tradition, which seeks to maintain national unity by "emphasizing general interests and shared values over individual interests and pluralism." The argument makes sense, and Bowen, an anthropology professor and expert on religion, provides a good discussion of France's historical traditions. Still, one is left wondering whether a better explanation of the French law might not simply be found in the particular scale of the challenge: integrating S-6

million Muslims.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS March/April 2007 [171]

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