Preface ix CHAPTER 1 Moral Purity and Impurity in the Old Testament 3 CHAPTER 2 Purity in the Religious Conflicts of Sixteenth-Century France 27 CHAPTER 3 Purity as a Revolutionary Concept in the French Revolution 59 CHAPTER 4 Notes on Purity and Pollution in Asiatic Civilizations 105 Epilogue 129 Notes 135 Index 151
With the Iranian Pasdaran, the Afghan Taliban, and the American New Christian Right, Moore's concerns have deep contemporary resonance. He has, however, chosen to reflect on action against alleged impurity by reaching far back into history... The result is a thought-provoking series of essays. -- Charles Tilly, Columbia University Barrington Moore delivers a powerful account of how Western civilization--in both its Christian and its secular revolutionary traditions--has nurtured a strong sense of divide between the pure 'we' and the impure and polluting 'enemy'. This, he compellingly argues, explains much of the mass murder so dominant in our history. -- Michael Mann, University of California, Los Angeles Moore has, over many decades, demonstrated a knack for selecting original topics with timely significance. This book is no exception... Justly celebrated for his analysis of the social structural determinants of political outcomes, Moore never lost sight of the importance of cultural factors. The constellation of ideas and beliefs that move people to action is an abiding theme in his life's work. Moral Purity reveals the extent to which cultural factors occupy a central place in Moore's approach to the study of popular movements. This is a stimulating, highly original set of essays by a master of comparative historical analysis with an extremely fertile sociological imagination. -- Victoria Bonnell, University of California, Berkeley
Barrington Moore, Jr. is an internationally known scholar with a passion for understanding the reasons for conflict and oppression in human societies. He has served on the Harvard University faculty for more than 50 years, as a lecturer on sociology and as Senior Research Fellow at the Russian Research Center. He is the author of the landmark Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World and other books.
Highly original and thought-provoking. -- Polymeris Voglis History: Journal of the Historical Association
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