Secularism: The Basics

Reviews / Votes

Praise for the first edition:

"Clear and comprehensive, Jacques Berlinerblau's Secularism: The Basics is a key contribution to a perennially important topic."

Caroline Mala Corbin, University of Miami School of Law, USA

"Smart, original and provocative, Belinerblau's book is essential reading for anyone who dares to use the word 'secular'."

Lori G. Beaman, University of Ottawa, Canada

"This book is superb. Berlinerblau is careful, fair, and honest in his treatment of secularism and its many manifestations. He has compiled his decades of research on this topic into a short, clear, and very insightful volume. The chapter on leftist critiques of secularism should be mandatory reading for all scholars interested in secularism. Anyone who cares about this topic will need to be familiar with this book. This will be my go-to reference on secularism from now on."

Ryan Cragun, University of Tampa, USA

"What a rare combination of great scholarly expertise and the courage to simplify! This engagingly written book breaks down complex meanings of secularism, discusses its historical manifestations and current controversies and provides a fierce defence of its political relevance in today's world."

Johannes Quack, University of Zurich, Switzerland

"Sharp, informative, insightful, engaging, accessible, authoritative - and beautifully cogent."

Phil Zuckerman, Pitzer College, USA

"Berlinerblau could have called this pithy and eminently engagingly written text, 'a handbook on the varieties of secularism,' because his main point is this: There is no single definition or political manifestation of secularism."

Jonathon Kahn, book review in Journal of Church and State, 65(1), Winter 2023, pp. 133-135

"Secularism delivers on its promise to cover the basics, which are presented as digestible components with chapter-specific further reading lists around which topical essay assignments could be designed. Berlinerblau has succeeded in writing an engaging and pedagogically useful introduction to secularism."

Eva Braunstein, book review in Reading Religion, JAAR, July 28, 2023

"Defending separation of church and state for genuinely democratic nations, this concise yet comprehensive book charts the political secularism safeguarding democratic ideals such as pluralism, full citizenship, and civil rights. Required reading for those in politics, constitutional theory, and international studies as well as for scholars of philosophy."

J. R. Shook, University of Buffalo, USA, book review in CHOICE, 60(5), January 2023

Jacques Berlinerblau's Secularism: The Basics is a kind of Everything That You Ever Wanted To Know About Secularism, But Never Dared Ask. To Berlinerblau's great credit, at less than 200 pages in total, it is an eminently accessible, light and at times even downright fun academic monograph to read. Each chapter comes with eminently useful suggestions for further reading for anyone wanting to dig deeper into the topics covered, and the book ends with a very useful glossary of terms.

All in all, Berlinerblau has written an engaged and eminently readable account of secularism which is of great value to students and scholars in the field alike. Berlinerblau deserves credit not only for the book, but also for the demonstrated will to communicate with a broad audience on display in its pages.

Sindre Bangstad, Journal of Secular Studies

Concluding, this book is a great read; indeed, I could hardly put it aside. It is intellectually rich, gives quite convincing arguments, great examples, and is highly engaging and accessible. Whatever one's position on religion, state and secularism, this book is a must, for both believers, non-believers, and doubters, and all those in-between. Helped by author's three proposals for 'innovation' of political secularism theory (p. 185f.), the book will foster more dialogue and mutual understanding - if people from all camps are willing to learn something new.

The book is one of the best guides to the thorny issue of 'secularism' as a political formula, and indeed sets out the issues of debate in an exemplary way. In three parts and 15 chapters, the author discusses concepts, and ideologies, and provides excellent historical examples and more recent trajectories and forms of secularism.

Jon Abbink, Journal of Secular Studies