Robert V. Robinson

Robert V. Robinson's CLAIMING SOCIETY FOR GOD, co-authored with Nancy J. Davis, shows how religiously orthodox movements of Christians, Jews and Muslims worldwide have converged on a common strategy to install their religion at the center of society. Rather than terrorism, as much post-9/11 thinking suggests, the strategy-in-common is a patient, under-the-radar transformation of civil society. CLAIMING SOCIETY FOR GOD tells the stories of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Shas in Israel, Comunione e Liberazione in Italy, and the Salvation Army in the United States. The book shows how these movements build massive grassroots networks of religiously-based social service agencies, hospitals, schools and businesses--networks already being called states within states--to bring their own brand of faith to popular and political fronts. A Facebook page for the book, with updates on these movements, study questions, and news about other religiously orthodox movements is at www.facebook.com/ClaimingSocietyForGod.

Robert Robinson is Chancellor's Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he served as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Director of the Schuessler Institute for Social Research. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University and has published widely on the role of religion in politics in dozens of countries around the world, winning recognition from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the American Sociological Association's sections on the sociology of religion and collective behavior and social movements.