Jonathan Laurence will discuss his book, Coping with Defeat (Princeton University Press, 2021), which argues that both Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam suffered major defeats at the hands of the modern state in the 19th and 20th centuries. Roman Catholicism lost its temporal power to the secular state; while Sunni Islam suffered the loss of the Caliphate due to the power of European empires. Catholicism retained and regained influence by accepting its loss and focusing on its religious mission; Sunni Islam has yet to make such a turn and suffers as a consequence.
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