Acknowledgments
New Introduction for the American Edition
1. Tolerance According to John Locke
2. Voltaire and Modern Tolerance
3. Tolerance in America
4. Tolerance in the Ottoman Empire
5. Tolerance in Venice
6. On Blasphemy
7. Multicultural Tolerance
8. Of Veils and Unveiling
9. New Restrictions, New Forms of Tolerance
10. Should We Tolerate the Enemies of Tolerance?
Epilogue for the American Edition: Tolerance in the Age of
Terrorism
Notes
Index
Denis Lacorne is research professor emeritus with the CERI (Centre de recherches internationales) at Sciences Po, Paris. His books in English include Religion in America: A Political History (Columbia, 2011) as well as Language, Nation, and State: Identity Politics in a Multilingual Age (2004) and With Us or Against Us: Studies in Global Anti-Americanism (2005), both coedited with Tony Judt.
[Lacorne] gives no pat answers, but an implicit lesson runs
throughout. Defending toleration is not like protecting a jewel. It
takes fixity of aim but also a feel for the changing context,
persistence with a task that never ends, and readiness to start
again. Toleration does gradually spread. It can also suddenly
vanish.
*The Economist*
I simply don’t know a book on toleration that compares to this one.
Denis Lacorne has managed to weave together both an intellectual
history of ideas about toleration and a wide-ranging international
survey of policies related to it. Theory and practice come together
in a very illuminating way and will expand the American reader’s
horizon beyond our borders.
*Mark Lilla, author of The Once and Future Liberal: After
Identity Politics*
Living in a religiously tolerant society, Americans no longer
understand what the challenge of achieving religious toleration
originally meant: learning to coexist with beliefs and practices
that one detested. Denis Lacorne begins this critical survey by
recalling the great Enlightenment voices for toleration: Locke,
Voltaire, and the American founders. But he then examines modern
European and American disputes to demonstrate why the struggle for
toleration and free exercise remains so problematic—a fight that
never quite ends but that we grasp much better after reading
Lacorne's crisp and incisive chapters.
*Jack N. Rakove, author of Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas
in the Making of the Constitution*
A timely, erudite, and insightful book that sheds light on issues
concerning whether and when contemporary democracies should
restrict the practices and beliefs of nonmainstream religious and
political groups. It is the best book written on this subject to
date.
*Bruce Cain, author of Democracy More or Less: America’s
Political Reform Quandary*
This insightful study will be useful to all who are interested in
clarifying their own views of this critical subject.
*Choice*
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