ABSTRACT
The concept of “Antagonistic Tolerance” developed in this book explains what many writers have seen as a paradox: how it happens that peoples of different religions who live peacefully intermingled for generations, and who may develop aspects of syncretism in their religious practices, turn on each other violently, even engaging in what is now called “ethnic cleansing.” The problem is current or recent (for example, ex-Yugoslavia, the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Cyprus) but hardly new: examples of such interactions can be found in many historical periods and settings, as, indeed, we show in our analyses. The literature on such violence is large and growing, and so is the literature on shared religious space, as we discuss. However, while other books on these topics either focus on one case or else present chapters on single cases, Antagonistic Tolerance presents a comparative model, based on analysis of materials from Bosnia, Bulgaria, India, Mexico, Peru, Portugal and Turkey, that is not broken down into separate case studies but rather woven into a unified analysis.
