New Religious Movements in Western Europe: An Annotated Bibliography

The first compilation that brings together publications on new religious movements (NRMs) from across Western Europe, this useful work includes titles written in most European languages. The introduction provides an overview of NRMs since 1960 and places them in a global perspective. The literature, from the late 1970s to the present, covers areas of study such as sociology, psychology, history, theology and more, and should be of interest to scholars and students in many disciplines. The work is a companion piece to Diane Choquette’s New Religious Movements in the United States and Canada: A Critical Assessment (Greenwood, 1985). The authors, experts in NRMs throughout the world, discuss various explanatory models that account for the emergence of NRMs and look at the way they have spread throughout the countries of Western Europe. Membership and impact are discussed, as well as the response of the wider society. The label new is addressed and some attempts at classification are presented.