Mark Juergensmeyer's book Terror in the Mind of God, first published in 2000 and now in its fourth edition (University of California Press, 2017), helped launch the current wave of scholarly interest in religion and violence, and his many other publications and collaborations continue to shape the scholarly discourse. As indicated in its subtitle, his most recent work is less a systematic and comprehensive analysis than a meditation. With the main text coming in at less than one hundred pages, comprising a five-page introduction and five chapters, this is an accessible addition to the literature. It focuses on the nature of war, its “odd appeal,” and its relationship to religious thought. Juergensmeyer wants to better understand “why war and religion seem so oddly compatible with one another” (vii).

Juergensmeyer's interest here is not in the structure or conduct of war, or in wars as specific historical events, but in war as an idea. He asserts that before (and during and after) war is a lived reality; it is a way of thinking about the world and one's role in it. A war mindset sees the world as teetering on chaos: “War is a way of thinking about this chaos, giving it a dichotomous structured order, and imagining a way in which the confusion can be made clear and the demons of danger conquered” (24). He deems war an “alternative reality,” one that is, counterintuitively, “comforting and reassuring” (33). Similarly, he calls religion an “alternative reality,” marked by a vision of order, and to the extent that this book has an argument, it is that these two alternative realities overlap as unexpectedly compatible sources of meaning and orientation.

A strength of this book is its anthropological approach. Juergensmeyer presents real people reflecting on war and religion, grounding the book in flesh-and-blood contexts. His subjects provide evidence of the prevalence of what Juergensmeyer calls “cosmic war,” a lens on war that refracts strong feelings of good versus evil, grand stakes, justification by God, and a sense of meaning from participating in a divine plan unfolding in history.

Despite this anthropological concreteness, however, the book ultimately feels abstract almost to the point of vagueness. Juergensmeyer is not concerned here with pursuing much precision about either war or religion. Of course, the quest for a single, comprehensive definition of religion is largely a wild goose chase. But the field of religious studies has produced a plethora of theories, analytical frameworks, and interpretive lenses that can be employed to sort through the phenomena we label religion/religious. This allows us what one might call a precision of multiplicity, a capacity to think clearly about the various specific forms and aspects of religion(s) that might matter in a given instance of violence or warfare (or any number of other concerns). Max Weber, for instance, has shown how a vision of the world shrouded in chaos can emerge from ascetic commitments that link a highly transcendent God, scripturalism, and apocalypticism in a coherent, pessimistic worldview. Although imperfect, this set of ideas would add significant precision to Juergensmeyer's reflections on cosmic war as an alternative reality. Along similar lines, one might interrogate Juergensmeyer's central idea of “alternative realities”: Alternative to what? Juergensmeyer invokes classic sociological thinking about “the social construction of reality” (see 52), but this framework would seem to undermine, not support, the implication of a single, stable “normal reality” to which war and religion are ready alternatives given each reality is just as socially constructed as any other.

Perhaps these criticisms, however, miss the point. Despite taking on such large categories and sweeping questions, this is a refreshingly modest book. It is less intent on answering its big questions than in provoking its readers to ask them, to ponder them, to take them seriously. It also shows a wide array of people in diverse circumstances doing just that in their everyday lives. A portion of the second chapter recounts how Juergensmeyer happened into the study of religion and violence in the first place, further enhancing the personal appeal of the book. As an addition to the ongoing scholarly conversation about religion and violence, from such an authoritative source, this is a welcome publication.