ABSTRACT
This book has argued that the uncertainties exposed by the emergence of concepts like postmodernity and neo-Paganism regarding how we understand what has happened over the course of the last four decades can be significantly dissipated if we consider that the period in history ranging from the late nineteenth century to today can be fruitfully divided into two constellations: the Nation-State and Global-Market regime. What the cases presented in this book show, and the Chinese case particularly, is that changes that have affected religion over the course of the last few decades are extremely profound and indissociably tied to the triumph of the Market over the State and the rapid development of today’s globalised and financialised brand of capitalism. This book ends with a discussion on women and gender, stressing how the shift to the Global-Market regime has put women at the forefront of religious dynamics. The effects of this, however, are multiple, and do not significantly put the former patriarchal order into question, although various patterns of women’s agency do appear.
