Hinterlands and Horizons: Excursions in Search of Amity (Global Encounters: Studies in Comparative Political Theory) - Hardcover

Few can equal Chatterjee's astonishing breadth of scholarship and ethical depth. -- Jerome Gellman, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Australian Catholic University This wide-ranging book describes the ways in which the ideal of brotherhood has been explicated by-among others-ancient Hebrews and modern Hindus, freemasons and feminists, nuns and Nazis. . . . Probably Chatterjee's best book yet. -- Jenny Teichman, New Hall, University of Cambridge Elegantly written, these essays are short, full of useful insights, balanced. . . . They draw on the vast reservoir of the author's knowledge of philosophy Eastern and Western , Modern and Contemporary. The reader is exposed to a brilliant array of thinkers, among them Husserl, Buber, Levinas, Sri Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan, Keshav Chunder Sen, and Mendelsohn. Each essay can stand on its own, but the thread of the search for amity gives them a supervening unity. -- Anthony J. Parel, University of Calgary

Margaret Chatterjee's new work Hinterlands and Horizons-a collection of nine phenomenological essays ranging across cultures and time periods-studies the historical and cultural evolution of the idea of amity and the concomitant concepts of fraternity, friendship, and tolerance. The work starts with the Enlightenment's idea of fraternity and its destruction during the fratricide of the French Terror. It includes chapters focusing upon the encounters between colonizers and missionaries, the impact of the Holocaust on the search for amity, the prospect for amity in contemporary multiculturalism, and the potential of religion to deepen the experience of amity. An incisive interdisciplinary analysis of the bases of discord and harmony, of history and memory, Hinterlands and Horizons will be an enduring contribution to the history of ideas.