"New Religions in Global Perspective" is the first truly worldwide account of the new religious movements that are currently the fastest-growing faith phenomenon in many parts of the globe. Ranging from North America and Europe to Japan, Latin America, South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, the book provides students with a complete introduction to groups such as Falun Gong, Soka Gakkai, the Brahma Kumaris, the Nation of Islam, Messianic Judaism, Rastafarianism, the Peyote cult, and Brazilian Candomble. Peter Clarke explores the dramatic rise of these enormously varied movements, charting their cultural significance and global impact, and discussing their place in a modern world of constant religious change. He also considers the many important ways in which their status as new religions is defined and understood, from genuinely unprecedented faiths with strictly modern roots to others that manifest themselves as new forms of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Paganism.

Peter B. Clarke is Professor Emeritus of the History and Sociology of Religion at King's College, University of London, and a professorial member of Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford. Among his publications are (with Peter Byrne) Religion Defined and Explained (1993) and Japanese New Religions In Global Perspective (ed) (2000). He is the founding editor and present co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary Religion.

Part 1: Global Perspective, New Age, and Society's Response 1. New Religious Movements: A Global Perspective 2. The New Age Movement (NAM): alternative or mainstream? 3. Accounting for Hostility to New Religious Movements Part 2: New Religions in the West 4. New Religious Movements in Europe 5. New Religious Movements in North America 6. New Religious Movements in Australia, New Zealand and Melanesia (New Guinea) Part 3: The New Religions of the Middle-East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean 7. New Islamic Movements in North Africa and the Middle-East 8. New Religious Movements in Africa South of the Sahara 9. New Religious Movements in South and Central America and the Carribean Part 4: New Religions of South, Southeast and East Asia 10. New Religious Movements in South Asia (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) 11. NRMs in South East Asia (Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia) 12. East Asia (1): Japanese New Religious Movements 13. East Asia (2): New Religious Movements in Japan, Taiwan and Korea Part 5: Conclusions 14. Conclusion: The Uncertain Impact of Old and New Religions Select Bibliography Index