Description
Book SynopsisStephen Strehle is a leading scholar of church/state issues. In this volume, he focuses his rigorous historical analysis and philosophical acumen upon a topic of great interest today and source of cultural wars around the globethe process of secularization. The book starts with a discussion of early capitalism and how it saw the real world functioning well-enough on its own principles of individual struggle and self-interest, without needing religious or moral principles to meddle in its affairs and eventually dispelling the need for any intelligent design or providential orchestration of life through the work of Darwin. The book then discusses the growth of the secular point of view: how historians dismissed the impact of religion in developing modern culture, how scientists conceived of the universe running on self-sufficient or mechanistic principles, and how people no longer looked to the providential hand of God to explain their suffering. The book ends with a discussion of how
Trade Review
“This fascinating, but scholarly and wide-ranging, account lays bare the tangled roots of secularity in the Western world over recent centuries. In so doing, it casts a clear light on some of the major forces that are shaping the world we live in now.”—Roger Trigg, Ian Ramsey Centre, University of Oxford
Table of Contents
Introduction – The Rise of Acquisitive Capitalism in France – The Development of Acquisitive Capitalism and Social Darwinism in Britain – Enlightened History – The Mechanistic Universe – Innocent Suffering – Mr. Jefferson – The Development of the Wall – Postscript – Index.
