The fourth volume of a projected six-volume set of a cross-religious study of fundamentalism examines the conditions under which a fundamentalist religious organization changes its ideological and behavioral patterns. Not surprisingly, about half the book deals with the Middle East (and another quarter with South Asia). Looking at that region's Jewish and Islamic phenomena, it includes several excellent chapters (notably, by Eliezer Don-Yehiya on the nationalist yeshivas in Israel and by Amatzia Baram on Shi'i fundamentalism in Iraq).
But the volume's outstanding chapter must be Hugh Roberts' subtle and knowledgeable analysis of the fundamentalist Muslimi rise Algeria. Roberts points out the completely unexpected nature of this development. Not only had fundamentalists long been marginal to Algeria public life, but they played almost no role in the October 1988 riots which opened up the political system. If, as conventional wisdom holds, fundamentalism gains when populations are prevented from expressing discontent through other channels, why did it gain as Algeria became more pluralistic? Roberts offers an byzantine but convincing explanation: President Chadli Benjedid encouraged the fundamentalists as a way of cutting down the rivals in his own party. His plans for a hung parliament which he could dominate ended in disaster as the fundamentalist message took hold. Though convoluted, this thesis convincingly accounts for the strange success of Algerian fundamentalism.
