Category: Reviews

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004, ISBN 0805074422) 417 pp. Cloth $27.50. Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism is the freethought book of the year. Make that the decade. OK, the century. The twenty-first century may be young, but it’s hard to believe anyone is …

What Is Good? The Search for the Best Way to Live, by A.C. Grayling (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003, ISBN 0-297–84132-7) 241 pp. Cloth $34. It is a good rule to try and read stuff you disagree with as often as you read stuff you agree with. It’s a good discipline. There are few better …

Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics, and the Western Psyche, by Shadia B. Drury (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, ISBN 1-4039-6404-1) 211 pp. incl. notes, references, index. Cloth $55.00. Imagine a religious zealot who triggers the collapse of a monumental public structure, snuffing out roughly three thousand innocent lives. Were you thinking of Mohammed Atta and …

The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Second Edition, Emmett Fields, ed. (Louisville, Kentucky: Bank of Wisdom, 2004, ISBN 1-929–4708-13-0) CD-ROM $24.95 + $3.00 S/H. Available at www.bank-of-wisdom.com. In its wholly revamped second edition, Emmett Fields’s CD-ROM The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll fulfills its potential as a powerful research tool and a digital compendium of …

Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe, by Victor J. Stenger (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2003, ISBN 1-59102–018-2) 373 pp. Cloth $30. Peggy Lee once asked in song, “Is that all there is?” and expressed disappointment at the difference between observable reality in which humans often mate …

Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, by William Saletan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, ISBN 0-520-08688-0) 327 pp. Cloth $29.95. The late 1980s saw a strategy change in the abortion rights movement. Talk of women’s rights, even the word abortion itself, largely gave way to a rhetoric of choice. NARAL—increasingly emphasizing its …

Serbia: The Democratic Revolution, by Svetozar Stojanovi´c (Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2003, ISBN 1-59102-052-2) 264 pp. Cloth $24.50. Svetozar Stojanovi´c is more than just a distinguished professor of philosophy. Over a long career, he has been influential in Yugoslav and, more recently, Serbian politics. He was a senior member of the Praxis group, a group …

Nothing Sacred, by Tom Flynn (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2004, ISBN 1-59102-127-8) 474 pp. Paper $20. When cubism, expressionism, and geometric abstraction emerged as the styles com­manding serious critical attention within the art world, lowly magazine illustra­tors and book­jacket artists unexpect­edly found themselves the guardians of representation. Once it became apparent that, thanks to the …

The Magdalene Sisters, directed by Peter Mullan (U.K.: Bórd Scannán na hE´ireann, 2002). The Magdalene Sisters follows the lives of four young Irish women: Rose (Dorothy Duffy) who, to her mother’s mortification, has just given birth to an illegitimate child; Margaret (Anne­Marie Duff), who is a rape victim; devout and slow­witted Crispina (Eileen Walsh); and …

The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science, by Taner Edis (Amherst: N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002, ISBN 1-57392–977-8) 330 pp. incl. Index. Cloth $29.00. This engaging, well-written book explores one of the Big Questions: does a scientific understanding of the cosmos require (or leave any room for) belief in a god or …

Making the Manifesto: The Birth of Religious Humanism, by William F. Schulz (Boston, Mass.: Skinner House Books, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2002, ISBN 1-55896–429-0) 164 pp., including Introduction, Endnotes, Index. Paper $18. Humanist Manifesto I (1933) may be viewed as a convergence of two themes in Western intellectual history: the selective redefinition of religion and the …

Sisters in Spririt: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists by Sally Roesch Wagner (Summertown, Tenn.: Native Voices, 2001, ISBN 0-57067–121-4) 126 pp. Paper $9.95. As the extensive biographical notes included in this slim volume suggest, Sally Roesch Wagner—longtime champion and chronicler of the women’s rights crusaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton—is, herself, …

Can We Be Good Without God?, by Robert Buckman (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002, ISBN 1-57392-974-3) 262 pp. Cloth $22.00. Robert Buckman is a man of many talents. He is a cancer specialist, a professor of medicine, a performer, and president of the Canadian Humanist Association. (Incidentally, Penguin Books of Toronto first published this book …

The Political Philosophy of Wole Soyinka and Other Narratives, by Yemi D. Ogunyemi (Boston: Diaspora Press of America, 2001, ISBN 0-9652-8602-9) 158 pp. Paper $10.00. Wole Soyinka is the first Black Nobel Prize winner for Literature. He is also a laureate of the Academy of Humanism and a recipient of the Distinguished Humanist Award from …

Heretics: The Bloody History of the Christian Church, by W. Sumner Davis, Th.D. (Bloomington, Ind.: 1st Books Library, www.1stbooks.com, 2002, ISBN 0-7596–7537-6) 169 pp., including Glossary, Bibliography. Paper $11.50. Heretics: The Bloody History of the Christian Church covers no new ground. The reader is taken through a journey of the dark and destructive side of …

The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World, by Jenny Uglow (New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002, ISBN 0-374-19440-8) 588 pp. Cloth $30.00.   “The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles,” which appears in every issue of Free Inquiry, is without question a document of our time, a good number …

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker (New York, N.Y.: Viking Press 2002, ISBN 0-670-03151-8) 439 pp. Cloth $27.95. The question of how much our genes contribute to what makes us human continues to be highly controversial within certain academic as well as many religious circles. In this book, without …

The Black Humanist Experience: An Alternative to Religion, edited by Norm R. Allen, Jr. (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2003, ISBN 1-57392–967-0) 167 pp. Cloth $24. If there are readers anywhere naïve enough to think that secular humanism is exclusively or even mostly a “White” or European phenomenon, Norm R. Allen, Jr.’s latest book will quickly …

Separation of Church and State, by Philip Hamburger (Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-674-00734-4) 514 pp. Cloth $49.95. Philip Hamburger’s book would be better titled Christian Disputes About the Separation of Church and State, as much of his research focuses on how Christians have wrestled over the relationship. Hamburger, a University of Chicago …