Publisher's Synopsis
These texts share a concern about the future, a regret that the evolution toward a more and more peaceful coexistence between humans from different nations and religions is coming to an end. The stability of developed countries eroded under the impact of the movement of refugees, and instead of providing a shared blueprint for ethics and transcendental ideas, religions became less and less relevant for the majority of moderate minded people. Religions even helped enforce social divisions in some aberrational form of faith. Muslim populations arrived in areas that used to be considered Christian, and the latter religion that in theory has the potential of spreading peace and good will all the way from Russia to California, turned out to be useful merely as an excuse for pursuing this or that political agenda. Refugees and religions produce social change, and as the West shows signs of crisis, the duty of social scientists to compare cultures in order to learn what makes them function or collapse, provokes the obvious task to finally look at China, which sociologists of the past (with few exceptions) have strangely ignored. If these essays contribute to looking at social change not as a superficial short-term trend, but as a crucial phase in how the human condition evolves or fails, then they serve a purpose.
