European self-reflection between politics and religion : the crisis of Europe in the twentieth century

This collection of essays suggests new ways of looking at the intertwining of political and religious agonies in the period 1914-1991. The long 'European civil war' revealed that Europe, far from being formed by a one-track progression, has followed several tracks or fault lines, leading to a number of contrasts in European self-perception. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-21 Front Matter....Pages 23-23 Italian Intellectuals and the European View: Croce, Nitti and Chabod between Dictatorship and Democracy....Pages 25-43 Europe between Democracy and Fascism: Hermann Heller on Fascism as a Threat to Europe and Democracy as a Community of Values....Pages 44-57 Reconstruction or Decline? The Concept of Europe and Its Political Implications in the Works of Ernst Troeltsch and Oswald Spengler....Pages 58-79 A Long and Winding Road: An International Perspective on the Fall and Rise of Democracy in Spain in the Twentieth Century....Pages 80-92 Front Matter....Pages 93-93 Theology as Language of Crisis: Karl Barth’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans....Pages 95-111 Martin Heidegger — A Protestant Church Father of the Twentieth Century? The Early Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religion and the Crisis of Western Culture....Pages 112-137 The Heritage from Athens and Galilee: Secular Democracy as a Lutheran Response to the European Crisis....Pages 138-157 Religion and Secular Modernity: A Historical Perspective on the Ratzinger-Habermas Encounter, 19 January 2004....Pages 158-189 Front Matter....Pages 191-191 A Post-Post-Liberal Order: How Western Europe Emerged from Its Thirty-Year Crisis....Pages 193-212 Bombing beyond Democracy: Remembering the Ruins of Europe....Pages 213-226 Reinterpreting the European Heritage since 1989: Culture as a Conflict of Interpretations....Pages 227-245 Back Matter....Pages 246-247 "Building on the German cultural analyst Siegfried Kracauer, the Italian microhistorian Carlo Ginzburg took up the idea of working with various optical perspectives - from close ups to long shots. Employing this differentiated approach to cultural studies, the book suggests a fresh approach to the intertwining of political and religious agonies in the period 1914-1991. In fact, the long 'European civil war' - with two world wars and a cold war - marked a paradigm shift decisively changing Europe's attitudes and ways of relating to the world. What characterises Europe is that far from being formed by a one-track development of progress and emancipation, it has followed several tracks or fault lines, creating a number of dualities and contrasts in the European self-perception such as those between secularisation and religion, and between democratic and authoritarian forms of government. The present book seeks to clarify how the 'European civil war' arose, revolving, as it did, round the fundamental question: what should Europe be?"-- Provided by publisher