In the original dustsheet. Black cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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A description of the religious revival currently sweeping the UK and Europe. With its focus on miracles and visions, the new charismatic/evangelical movement is revolutionizing what it means to be Christian today. It is also proving a significant social and political force, with instincts markedly different from comparable movements in the 1980s. Conservative fundamentalism is out – instead the emphasis is on traditional Christian concern for the poor and the deprived. Ian Cotton approaches this controversial subject with sensitivity and intelligence, indicating how the new style of religious worship links up with the Green and New Age movements.

  Author Ian Cotton was born in 1945, and grew up in Sutton, Surrey, son of a doctor. His was a sports-obsessed family; his grand-uncle, an Oxfordshire cricketer, taught him a unique grip for leg-spin – so he bowled out all the older boys, to his delight. He then went to New College Oxford,where, despite being an entrance scholar, he never really connected with the analytical approach to English Literature – accepting his work with Christopher Tolkien, son of the famous JRR, whose tutorials he loved. A career in journalism followed ( Nova, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, the London Evening Standard) where he pursued what he calls ‘ humorous sociology’. Thence arose two books, both with a psychological bent. ‘Summer of Hope’, Simon and Schuster 2002, looked at autism, while ‘ The Hallelujah Revolution’, Little Brown 1995, explored the rise of religious fundamentalism worldwide, six years before 9/11 and a generation before Trump’s presidential victory in 2016, where American evangelicals were so crucial. Ian puts the rise of such belief systems (as also what he feels is their first cousin, capitalist fundamentalism) down to the unprecedented stress and disorientation of modern life. It is a subject, he says, to which he will return.