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Books

The Crisis of Culture by Olivier Roy

Théo Blanc draws on recent French philosophy to explore an idea of culture in crisis.

Oliver Roy’s latest book, The Crisis of Culture (2024), represents the culmination of an intellectual trajectory set forth first in Globalised Islam (2002), Holy Ignorance (2008), and Is Europe Christian? (2019). The common thread of these books is a reflection on the interplay between local cultures, religious norms, and globalization. The Crisis of Culture is remarkable for its ambitious formulation of a grand theory at a time when social scientists often settle for middle-range theories and/or provincial case-studies. Roy’s self-declared objective is to analyse the symbolic impact of events rather than the statistical magnitude of the phenomena under study.

In The Crisis of Culture, Roy puts forth four key arguments, concerning: (1) The deculturation of societies; (2) The extension of norms; (3) The depoliticization of controversies and of social protest mobilization; and (4) The crisis of humanism and intimacy.

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