The Muslim Scare in Europe: Hysteria or Threat?

Award-winning author and journalist Ian Buruma will discuss the debates about Muslim radicalism, immigration, and the challenge from religion in several European countries where anti-immigrant populism is on the rise and Islam is the main focus – from the arguments about multiculturalism in Britain to the proposed burqa ban in France. Is the danger posed by Muslim immigrants real? If it is exaggerated, why the general hysteria? Buruma will address these questions and others raised in his new book Taming the Gods, a sharp-eyed look at the tensions between religion and politics on three continents: Europe, Asia and North America.
Buruma is also the author of Anglomania, Inventing Japan, and Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance, which won a Los Angeles Times Book Award. Courtesy of Borders, copies of Taming the Gods will be available for purchase and signing at this event.

“Ian Buruma addresses questions of political philosophy, moral accountability and mass psychology in the most rigorous possible way: journalistically.” The New York Times

Presented as part of the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies at UCSB, a program of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, cosponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the Department of Religious Studies, Congregation B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara Hillel.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

hm 4/25/10