"The main aim of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book is to characterize and explain the difference between pre-scientific systems of belief within which science could, and did, emerge and develop. Using the armoury of both philosophy and anthropology, Ernest Gellner attacks his task with his customary sharp wit and polemical gusto." - Times Literary Supplement.

A collection of original case studies of different types of political violence in the 20th and 21st century inspired by the pioneering work of Robert Conquest. It focuses on the origins, manifestations and legitimation of such violence and includes the former Soviet Union, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba and radical-militant Islam.

This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.

David Beetham's book explores the legitimation of power both as an issue in political and social science theory and in relation to the legitimacy of contemporary political systems including its breakdown in revolution. 'An admirable text which is far reaching in its scope and extraordinary in the clarity with which it covers a wide range of material... One xan have nothing but the highest regard for this volume.' - David Held, Times Higher Education Supplement;'Beetham has produced a study bound to revolutionize sociological thinking and teaching... Seminal and profoundly original... Beetham's book should become the obligitory reading for every teacher and practitioner of social science.' - Zygmunt Bauman, Sociology

The new edition of this classic text provides a comprehensive introduction to the concept of legitimacy as applied to political systems. Now addressing the issue of legitimacy beyond the state, the book also includes a new introduction and two major additional chapters which update the argument in the light of developments and debates.

This work deals explicitly with the issue of how emerging religions legitimate themselves. It contends that a new religion has at least four different, though overlapping, areas where legitimacy is a concern: making converts, maintaining followers, shaping public opinion and appeasing government authorities. The legitimacy that new religions seek in the public realm is primarily that of social acceptance. recognizing its status as a genuine religion and thus recognizing its right to exist. Through a series of wide-ranging case studies James Lewis explores the diversification of legitimation strategies of new religions as well as the tactics that their critics use to de-legitimate such groups. Cases include the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, Native American prophet religions, spiritualism, the Church of Christ-Scientist, Scientology, Church of Satan, Heaven's Gate, Unitarianism, Hindu reform movements and Soka Gakkai, a new Buddhist sect. to the legitimation strategies deployed by established religions, the book sheds light on classic questions about the origin of all religions.

Legitimacy has long been perceived through a Westernized lens as a fixed, binary state. In this book, Kathy Dodworth offers an exploration of everyday legitimation practices in coastal Tanzania, which challenges this understanding within postcolonial contexts. She reveals how non-government organizations craft their authority to act, working with, against and through the state, and what these practices tell us about contemporary legitimation. Synthesizing detailed, ethnographic fieldwork with theoretical innovations from across the social sciences, legitimacy is reworked not as a fixed state, but as a collection of constantly renegotiated practices. Critically adopting insights from political theory, sociology and anthropology, this book develops a detailed picture of contemporary governance in Tanzania and beyond in the wake of waning Western dominance.

The early essays in this volume proceed on the assumption that a compatibility system can be fashioned that will not only bring religious knowledge claims into harmony with scientific claims but will also show there to be a fundamental similarity of method in religious and scientific thinking. They are not, however, unambiguously successful. Consequently Professor Wiebe sets out in the succeeding essays to seek an understanding of the religion/science relationship that does not assume they must be compatible. That examination, in the final analysis, reveals a fundamental contradiction in the compatibility system building programme which more than suggests that religious belief (knowledge) is beyond legitimation.

Bridging the gap between traditional and contemporary research, Andrea Lippi’s Legitimacy and Legitimation of Political Authorities presents a comprehensive and systematic analysis of both legitimacy and legitimation as two theoretical concepts, focusing on their respective roles in political systems today.

Ernest Gellner was a multilingual polymath who set the agenda in the study of nationalism and the sociology of Islam for an entire generation of academics and students. This definitive biography follows his trajectory from his early years in Prague, Paris and England to international success as a philosopher and public intellectual. Known both for his highly integrated philosophy of modernity and for combining a respect for nationalism with an appreciation for science, Gellner was passionate in his defence of reason against every for of relativism.