Description: Does religion have a place in the future of Western society? Author Marcel Gauchet reinterprets the development of the modern west in terms of mankind's changing relation to religion. Gauchet does not close the door on religion but rather invites us to explore its socially constructive powers, which continue to shape Western politics and conceptions of the state.
Review Quotes: "There is a stubborn kernel of truth here. It is that a liberal order may find a friend in religion because God's otherness is what makes us free: free to believe and free not to believe. Western history is the unfolding of this irony."---Jean Bethke Elshtain, The New Republic