Columbia Global Reports

When the robe becomes a weapon, who can stop the violenc? e think of Buddhism as a faith of peace—rooted in compassion, patience, and nonviolence. But across South and Southeast Asia today, the robe is being turned into a weapon as radical monks and nationalist movements unleash hatred and war. In The Robe and the Sword, acclaimed journalist Sonia Faleiro travels from Sri Lanka’s riot-scarred towns to the homes of refugees along the Myanmar border to Thailand’s fortified temples, uncovering how militant monks have transformed a tradition of nonviolence into a tool of terror. She reveals how Sri Lanka’s Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara incited mobs against Muslims, how Myanmar’s Ashin Wirathu helped ignite a genocide, and how elements of Thailand’s clergy have entrenched military rule. Through vivid portraits of zealots, survivors, and dissident monks fighting to reclaim their faith, Faleiro delivers an unflinching investigation into the colonial trauma, economic grievances, and political forces fueling a dangerous new extremism. The Robe and the Sword is a searing and indispensable work of narrative nonfiction, urgently needed to understand how sacred traditions are being weaponized—and what is at stake for the future of our interconnected world.

?Contravening conventional wisdom, Zelizer offers a spirited defense of parties and partisanship.? ?Frances Lee, Princeton UniversityPartisanship is a dirty word in American politics. If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it?s the belief that the intense loyalty within the electorate toward Democrats and Republicans is the source of our democratic ills?division, dysfunction, distrust, and disinformation. The possibilities that responsible partisanship can offer were at the heart of an important intellectual tradition that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, one which was institutionalized through a sweeping set of congressional reforms in the 1970s and 1980s.In Defense of Partisanship reimagines what partisanship might look like going forward from today. A new era of party-oriented reforms has the potential to pay respect to the deep differences that divide us?simultaneously creating a more functional path on which two responsible political parties compete to shape policy while still being able to govern.