India, Sept. 21 -- Thomas Menamparampil's Exaggeration Invites Exaggeration is a wide-ranging, deeply reflective engagement with some of the major crises confronting contemporary humanity: violence, religious fundamentalism, aggressive secularism, nationalism, political polarisation, the criminalisation of public life, inequality, economic exploitation, cultural exclusion, and the weakening of social solidarity. The title captures the book's central argument: excess generates counter-excess. Humiliation produces resentment, anger provokes anger, fanaticism foments fanaticism, exclusion intensifies identity, and violence creates conditions for further violence.

A major strength of the book is that Menamparampil does not examine these issu...