Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy. Danny Postel is Assistant Director of the Middle East and North African Studies Program at Northwestern University and the former Associate Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is the author of Reading 'Legitimation Crisis' in Tehran and co-editor of The Syria Dilemma and The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran's Future.

"Why has sectarianism become such an urgent, destructive force in today's Middle East? This collection brings together a diverse group of scholars to advance a distinctively political explanation for the rise of sectarian conflict across the region. Rather than resort to essentialised identities, these essays expertly dissect the historical, political and instititutional contexts within which cynical political and social actors have mobilised sectarianism for their own ends. Every student of Middle East politics will benefit from reading and thinking hard about the implications of this collection." -- Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science, George Washington University, Director of the Project on Middle East Political Science, and author of The New Arab Wars: Anarchy and Uprising in the Middle East

"Sectarianization brings together a group of fine scholars to interrogate what has become a new Orientalist orthodoxy vis-à-vis the Middle East. The rigorous historical and socio-political analyses in the book make it clear that the astonishing sectarian conflicts in today's Middle East have little to do with any ancient primordial loyalties, but are rooted in the contemporary geopolitics of the region. Sectarianization is an indispensable read for these bleak times." -- Asef Bayat, Catherine & Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies and Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"The master narrative that everything in the Middle East is explained by religious fanaticism has a long history in the West. Paradoxically, in our own era it has, if anything, become more inescapable than it was in the day of Martin Luther, despite the proliferation of social science about the region in the Western academy. Hashemi and Postel do an enormous service by bringing together in one volume a mass of research knocking down the 'sectarianism thesis.' It is essential for anyone who wants truly to understand this crucial region." -- Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan

"The book as a whole presents sectarianization analysis as a significant new alternative, as it focuses attention on sectarianism as an active and contingent process and redefines how scholars understand the role of identity politics in conflicts." --Lindsay Burton, Claremont McKenna College, Review of Middle Eastern Studies

"A major contribution."--Global Change, Peace and Security