Category: Reviews

The Bible, the School, and the Consitution: The Clash That Shaped Modern Church-State Doctrine, by Steven K. Green (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-982790-9) 304 pp. Hardcover, $29.95. Steven K. Green is the Frank H. Paulus Professor of Law and an adjunct professor of history at Willamette University and director of the interdisciplinary …

A Provocative People: A Secular History of the Jews, by Sherwin T. Wine (Farmington Hills, Mich.: International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9851516-0-7) 508 pp. Papeback, $24.95 Sherwin Wine (1928-2007) was the founder of the Humanistic Judaism movement (the fifth strain of organized Judaism in addition to Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Orthodox), the …

In Freedom We Trust, by Edward M. Buckner and Michael E. Buckner (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2012, ISBN 978-1-61614-644-3) 250 pp. Paperback, $18.00. In researching my e-book Roger Williams’ Little Book of Virtues, I came across a rather telling quote from Professor Romeo Elton that he penned during the Reconstruction Era: “At a crisis when …

Realising Secularism: Australia and New Zealand, edited by Max Wallace (Milsons Point, NSW, Australia: Australia New Zealand Secular Association, 2010, ISBN 987-0-646-52720-8A) 161 pp. Paperback. Australia, New Zealand, and the United States have much in common. All three are English-speaking, more-or-less democratic former British colonies that largely displaced indigenous peoples. They have similar histories and …

The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, by Susan Jacoby (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-300-18892-9). 256 pp. Hardcover, $25.00. The life of nineteenth-century freethought orator Robert Green Ingersoll has been chronicled by five previous biographers, the most recent previously being Frank Smith, whose Robert G. Ingersoll: A Life appeared in …

Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor, by Eamon Duffy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780300152166) 249 pp. Paperback, $29.17. Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor by Eamon Duffy, professor of the history of Christianity in the University of Cambridge, is another of his informative studies of the …

Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday!, by Penn Jillette (New York: Blue Rider Press, the Penguin Group, 2012, ISBN 978-0-399-16156-8). pp. Hardcover, $25.95. Golden Compass author Philip Pullman has written that “after nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Had Penn Jillette authored this sentiment, one could be …

Meaning and Value in a Secular Age: Why Eupraxsophy Matters—The Writings of Paul Kurtz, edited by Nathan Bupp (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2012, ISBN 13: 9781616143215) 265 pp. Paper, $19.00. It may be difficult to recall nowadays, but there was a time when the greatest atheists were philosophical giants. They matched their metaphysical, theological, and …

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011, ISBN 978-0-393- 06447-6) 356 pp. Hardcover, $26.95. Distinguished Harvard University professor Stephen Greenblatt contends that rediscovery of the lost Lucretius poem, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), helped trigger the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, and …

Mortality, by Christopher Hitchens (New York: Twelve Books, 2012, ISBN ) 104 pp. Paperback, $22.99. A constant reflection on demise is a good thing. — Christopher Hitchens To devotees of Christopher Hitchens, of which I am unabashedly one, his final tome is a heartbreaking journey’s end; not because of pathos or sentimentality, which he avoids …

That’s Not What They Meant!: Reclaiming the Founding Fathers from America’s Right Wing, by Michael Austin (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2012, ISBN 978-1-61614-670-2) 285 pp. Paperback, $19.00. The Founding Fathers these days are a bit like Silly Putty – they can be stretched into just about any position. Political commentators on the Right and the …

The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, by Daniel Boyarin (New York: New Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59558-4687) 223 pp. Hardcover, $21.95. Author Daniel Boyarin’s approach in The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ seems akin to one that believers in Mother Goose and Santa Claus might take. Instead of focusing on …

Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of the Secular Americans, by David Niose (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, ISBN 978-0-230-33895-1) 240 pp. Hardcover, $27.00. One of the classes that I teach within the secular studies program at Pitzer College is called “Secularism: Local/Global.” A major goal of the class is to understand and analyze the political and …

A Judeo-Islamic Nation: The Evolution of America’s Political Theology, by Thomas Mates (Minneapolis: Mill City Press, 2011, ISBN13 978-1-936780-76-1) 239 pp. Paper, $14.95. Now and then a self-published book demands inclusion in Free Inquiry’s review section, even though we can’t find space to consider all the deserving works from mainstream publishers. With A Judeo-Islamic Nation, …

Could I Vote for a Mormon for President? An Election-Year Guide to Mitt Romney’s Religion, by Ryan T. Cragun and Rick Phillips (Washington, D.C.: Strange Violin Editions, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9837484-5-8) 132 pp. Paperback, $12.95. Before this review can proceed, we must accept two assumptions: an avowed secularist has no chance of becoming president in this …

Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt, by Herb Silverman (Charlottesville, Va.: Pitchstone Publishing, 2012, ISBN 978-0984493289) 255 pp. Hardcover, $22.95. Herb Silverman is quite well known to all insiders of the secular humanist, atheist, freethought, rationalist, Brights, Ethical Culturalists, and Humanistic Jewish movements. His autobiography—Candidate Without a …

The Messiah Game: A Comedy of Terrors, Book I, by Tom Flynn (Tucson: See Sharp Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-937276-04-1) 245 pp. Paperback, $11.95. Who but Tom Flynn could have written such a book? Anyone familiar with his keenly insightful and humorous essays will discover in these pages that his skills as a teller of tales …

Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, by Alain de Botton (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012, ISBN 978-0-307-37910-8) 320 pp. Hardcover, $26.95. Alain de Botton does n’t think God exists, but he regards thinking about God as only one among many things religion is good for. Subtracting God-belief from religion, in …

The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions, by Alex Rosenberg (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011, ISBN 978-0-393-08023-0) 352 pp. Hardcover, $25.95. Post-millennial atheist writers seem to have moved from stage one to stage two. The nonexistence of God was dealt with by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and others in the 2000s. Now …

What Jesus Didn’t Say, by Gerd Lüdemann (Salem, Oregon: Polebridge Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-59815-030-8). IV + 133 pp. Paper, $18.00. When the members of the Jesus Seminar finished sifting through the sayings and stories of the Gospels, their goal was to construct a database from which one might reconstruct the career and teaching of the historical …

Letters from an Atheist Nation: Godless Voices of America in 1903, edited by Thomas Lawson (Langley, B.C.: Thomas Lawson Books, 2011, ISBN13 9781466397354) 347 pp. Paper, $16.95; e-book for Amazon Kindle only, $7.99. In 1903, the Blue Grass Blade—after The Truth Seeker and The Boston Investigator, perhaps America’s most successful national freethought newspaper during the …

Hannah Arendt: Radical Conservative, by Irving Louis Horowitz (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4128-4602-8) xii +100 pp. Hardcover, $29.95. By the end of this year, Hannah Arendt will have been the subject of at least five books devoted entirely to her thought, including Steve Buckler’s Hannah Arendt and Political Theory, Marco Goldoni and Christopher …

Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, by Bart D. Ehrman (New York: HarperOne, 2012, ISBN 0062204602) 373 pp. Hardcover, $26.99. Bart Ehrman is a historian and Bible expert who, although an agnostic, has for years been teaching the New Testament at an American University in the so-called Bible Belt. In Did …

The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights, by Austin Dacey (New York: Continuum, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4411-8392-7) 208 pp. Paper, $19.95. The word blasphemy has such an antique ring to it that one is tempted to think it went the way of the Spanish Inquisition. But prohibitions on speech …

Arguably: Essays, by Christopher Hitchens (New York: Twelve, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4555-0277-6) xix + 788 pp. Cloth, $30.00. In his final column for Free Inquiry (February/March 2012), Christopher Hitchens described himself as “a self-taught amateur writer.” If one were inclined to take this characterization seriously, and if such faux modesty could be purchased by the yard, …

The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, by Katherine Stewart (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2012, ISBN-13:978-58648-843-7) 291 pp., $25.99. Without doubt, The Good News Club is one of the most important books to appear this year. In it, investigative reporter Katherine Stewart exposes the staggeringly serious under-the-radar tsunami of …

John Emerson Roberts: Kansas City’s “Up-to-date” Freethought Preacher, by Ellen Roberts Young (Bloomington, Ind.: Xlibris, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4628-7292-1) 244 pp. Cloth, $29.99. On rare occasions, vanity presses bring forth a noteworthy title. For students of the history of freethought, religious humanism, and Midwestern intellectual culture, this is one of those occasions. Independent scholar Ellen Roberts …

Darwin the Writer, by George Levine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-960843-0) 244 pp. Cloth, $35.00. An odd thing happens when one sits down to read a book about Darwin’s skill as a writer. After only a few pages, there is a strong desire to put down the book about Darwin and go …

Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion, by Phil Zuckerman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-974001-7) 224 pp. Cloth, $24.95. Historically, those most interested in the reasons people leave religion have been the religious. Those who have already left typically aren’t concerned with why people leave; they’re just glad for the company. But …

God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution, by Thomas S. Kidd (New York: Basic Books, 2010, ISBN 978-0-465-00235-1) 298 pp. Cloth, $26.95. Thomas Kidd is associate professor of history at Baylor University and a senior fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion. He has appeared on the Glenn Beck television program …

Revolutionary Deists: Early America’s Rational Infidels, by Kerry Walters (Amherst, N.Y., Prometheus Books, 2011, ISBN 978-1-61614-190-5) 279 pp. Paper, $20.00 Most everyone who writes a book claims it fills a “gap in the literature.” So often is this claim made that it’s all the more surprising when one actually comes across a book where the …

Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski, eds., Sentinels In Honor of Arthur C. Clarke (Overland Park, Kansas: Hadley Rille Books, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9825140-7-8) 399 pp. Cloth, $29.95 Arthur C. Clarke was one of the three towering figures of science fiction’s Golden Age, standing alongside Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. He is perhaps best loved in …

The Conspiracy against the Human Race, by Thomas Ligotti (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9844802-7-2) 246 pp. Paper, $15.00. Some secular humanists accept that the universe is unauthored and was unintended and that life taken as a whole is inherently meaningless (though human beings may attach to it rich, if contingent, meanings of their …

A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment, by Philipp Blom (New York: Basic Books, 2010, ISBN 978-0-465-01453-8) 361 pp. Cloth, $29.95. Though Philipp Blom’s newest book is classed as philosophical history, A Wicked Company addresses issues that resonate with the rationalist and humanist movements of today. This engrossing work is about the …

C.M. Kornbluth: The Life and Works of a Science Fiction Visionary, by Mark Rich (Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2010, 9780786443932) 439 pp. Paper, $39.95. Cyril M. Kornbluth, born in New York City in 1923, was educated at City College and the University of Chicago; received a Bronze Star for …

The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire, by Cecil Bothwell, second edition (Asheville, N.C.: Brave Ulysses Books, 2010, ISBN 9781456325909) 215 pp. Paper, $16. Billy Graham has had public and private facilities named after him and been called the “preacher to presidents” and “God’s ambassador.” He is an icon of …

Divinity of Doubt: The God Question, by Vincent Bugliosi (New York: Vanguard Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-59315-629-9) 352 pp. Cloth, $26.99. Vincent Bugliosi has been a personal hero of mine since I saw the CBS television movie Helter Skelter in 1976. He successfully prosecuted the self-styled Antichrist Charles Manson in the face of police incompetence and …

Pox: An American History, by Michael Willrich (New York: Penguin Press, 2011, ISBN 9781594202865) 400 pp. Cloth, $27.95. During the first years of the twentieth century, smallpox, that most feared of scourges, became known as the “fool killer.” One simply had no excuse for catching it anymore. Any physician worth his salt knew the clinical …

God and Human Beings, by Voltaire; first English translation by Michael Shreve, Introduction by S.T. Joshi (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-61614-178-3) 183 pp. Paper, $18. God and Human Beings is a little-known work by Voltaire (1694–1778). It was published late in his life, when he was seventy-five years old, and just recently translated …

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, by Sam Harris (New York: Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2010, ISBN 978-1-4391-7121-9) 279 pp. Cloth, $26.99. In his new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Sam Harris describes what he calls “a science of human flourishing” (7). …