Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, religion has taken on a more prominent role throughout Eurasia in ethno-national identification, social practices, and public policies. This edited volume seeks to explore the role of religion in the post-Soviet socialist system from an interdisciplinary perspective that employs a wide range of methodologies, such as extensive interviews, long-term fieldwork, and analytical studies of archival material. Unlike some edited volumes, this one is organized around three major themes that unite its disparate and diverse chapters, thereby creating cohesiveness in the volume's content.

One of the volume's concerns is the relationship between religion and democracy: does the state permit religious toleration and pluralism, and, if so, do religious believers reciprocate in their support for democratic norms and values? Three contributors focus on this particular topic: Irina Papkova's and Zoe Knox's examinations of the Russian Orthodox Church and Russell Zanca's study of Islam in Uzbekistan. All three contributors conclude that democracies need to support religious liberty as a fundamental human right, that violation of this right is a strong indication of wider civil liberties abuses, and that religious intolerance poses a serious threat to democratic government.

Knox looks at the Russian state's discriminatory treatment of non-Orthodox groups and practices, particularly Roman Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses, during the Vladimir Putin years. We discover that the 1997 Russian Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Association guarantees freedom of religious choice for all people while providing a special place for Russian Orthodoxy. This legal duality allows the state to discriminate against religious minorities as it simultaneously proclaims its commitment to guarantee religious liberty.

However, in her exploration of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and democratic norms like religious liberty, Papkova contends that criticisms of the Church as an obstacle to democracy are too simplistic. The Church has been and continues to be divided into several factions, including a small, nationalist fundamentalist party; a liberal-democratic, reformist one; and the currently dominant conservative and pragmatic group. Thus, the real question scholars should ask is which type of Orthodoxy will emerge in post-Soviet society. Although the Church has sought a special role in society, the state has limited its political influence. Meanwhile, the Church leadership has acted within civil society, tolerating to a certain extent religious and social pluralism.

Zanca's study of Islam in Uzbekistan provides a comparative contrast to the role played by Christianity in Russia, where the revival of Islam has been neither extremist nor political. For most Uzbeks, Islam is a moral and ethical concern rather than a political one. However, the state's repressive policies, especially after September 11 when the state took advantage of fear of Islamic terrorism, increased the danger of a radicalized Islam. The lesson for United States policymakers is that human rights, such as religious freedom, should be incorporated in relations with Islamic states to prevent the spread of religious extremism.

A second theme of the volume is the relationship between religion and economic inequality in societies where the state's welfare system has collapsed. Why do some communities engage in charitable work while others withdraw in religious contemplation? Scott Kenworthy, Melissa Caldwell, and Douglas Rogers all explore the reasons for these differing responses among post-Soviet religious organizations.

For Kenworthy, the Russian Orthodox Church refrains from social work due to its tradition of emphasizing individual, as opposed to institutional, charity. As a result, foreign missionaries have filled the gap left by both the Church and the state, as Caldwell documents. These foreign missionaries provide positive examples of civic engagement but also are criticized for taking advantage of a society's social and economic hardship to increase their organizations' membership.

Religious organizations also can be complicit in legitimating and institutionalizing social and economic inequalities. In Sepych, a small town in the Russian Urals, Rogers traces how membership of the Old Believers (a 17th-century schismatic group of the Russian Orthodox Church) became revived with former communist party leaders. The consequence was religious and political elites realigned to create new kinds of inequalities and subordination in post-Soviet society.

The third and final topic of the volume is the role of religion in community formation after the collapse of the Soviet socialist system. To what extent has religion replaced socialist ideology for individual and group identity? Jarrett Zigon, Sascha Goluboff, and Katherine Metzo investigate how people have integrated religion with other sources — whether past Soviet ideology or modern technology — into their own personal and group identity.

In a series of conversations, Zigon is able to show how the social and cultural experience of a newly discovered faith in Orthodoxy has shaped the evolving morality of a single, middle-aged Russian woman who grew up in the Soviet Union. Metzo also illustrates how religion plays a role in individual and group identity with her study of contemporary shamanism that promises the power of healing to compensate for the lack of adequate health care. Finally, Goluboff records the Azeri Mountain Jewish experience of loss and mourning, where Jews still wish to be buried in their home village even though they may have left it many years ago.

Besides the uniformly excellent chapters, the volume also features a superb introduction and conclusion. One of the great strengths of this volume is the fact that the contributors refer to each other's works, which makes the volume more of a cohesive whole than a set of scattered chapters. Simply put, Religion, Morality, and Community in Post-Soviet Societies is a required read for scholars interested in the roles of religion, democracy, and community in post-Soviet societies.