Mark Sedgwick's book, Against the Modern World, was published in 2009, but it is compulsive reading for commentary on the contemporary world, beset as it is with the rise of the traditional far right as well as far right religious fundamentalisms. The book spells out some intellectual influences on both traditions of thought.
Alison Assiter, Feminist Dissent
'An ... Read moreexceptionally well-informed book.... It is a marvellous inquiry on the mutual porosity of a wide range of sometimes mutually contradictory anti-modernist ideological trends, from anarchism to fascism, and mutually opposed ilieus, from dissidents to officers of secret services.'
Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Central Eurasian Reader 'Against the Modern World is a genuinely startling book. In this massively researched and clearly written study, Mark Sedgwick seeks nothing less than to provide an alternative intellectual history of the twentieth century. Time and again, he offers unexpected connections, stresses the importance of forgotten or underestimated thinkers, and throws new light on the history of esoteric thought and religion. A wonderful contribution.'
Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity 'An erudite, graceful, and nuanced study of a movement that has enjoyed far more influence than attention in the modern world that it so despises.'
Parabola This is an invaluable contribution to an ongoing and increasingly sophisticated discussion about modernity, the professional study of religion, and the religions themselves. What sets Sedgwick's narrative apart from most all previous accounts is his remarkable historical sweep (from the Italian Renaissance to today), his impressive grasp of the Muslim world, and, perhaps most of all, the humane grace with which he treats his historical subjects. Here they emerge with both their hearts and their warts intact, neither as intellectual fathers to slay nor as cultural gods to put on the proverbial pedestal, but as human beings struggling with some of the deepest religious problems and promises of our modern world. The result is a reading experience through which one comes to realize, with something of a start, that their story happens also to be ours.
Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism Show Less