Andrew Copson - Secularism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Praise for the hardback: Secularism: Politics, Religion, and Freedom

A timely tour de force and indispensable analysis for anyone seeking to get to grips with the roots, philosophy, and current controversies surrounding secularism which are challenging our vexed world.

Professor Francesca Klug, author of A Magna Carta For All Humanity: Homing in on Human Rights

Secularism is of growing importance all over the world, yet it is also an approach with deep roots reaching far back into our history. Andrew Copson elegantly explores this history as well as secularisms importance today, showing how it evolved and how it is the key to de-escalating so many of the modern worlds points of conflict.

Dan Snow, historian and broadcaster

Andrew Copson is one of the most thoughtful people in the world on secularism. We have never needed a sane, intelligent, persuasive guide to secularism more than nowso Id say thank God for this excellent book, if that wasnt too obviously ironic.

Johann Hari

This is an exceptionally careful, fair-minded and positive introduction to the many meanings of a word often carelessly used. It will be an enormous help to all who want to understand better the current controversies about religious belief and modern society.

Rowan Williams

A secular State embraces freedom of religion or belief, the equal treatment of persons regardless of faith, and the separation of religious and state authorities. In this wide-ranging and timely study Andrew Copson describes the virtues of secularism as the guarantor of equal dignity, freedom, and security for all, but also the various platforms from which it is opposed, and its fragile and increasingly beleaguered state across the world. Scrupulously fair, his book brings much-needed clarity into a confused and embittered area of dispute.

Simon Blackburn, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Visiting Professor at the New College of the Humanities

a concise and usefully nonpolemical summary of the wide variety of liberal secularisms around the world.

Michael Ignatieff

informative, admirably balanced, very well written, and full of examples I cannot recommend this book too highly This book prompts the reader to think deeply. Deservedly it will attract a wide audience both within and without the academy, not least as a first-rate teaching tool.

Grace Davie, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Exeter and author of Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing Without Belonging

A must read. It is a worthwhile introduction that will inform and may correct some assumptions and prejudices.

The Rev Maurice Stafford, Methodist Recorder

Concise and fair-minded Secularism helps the reader navigate [the] shifting terrain admirably.

Nick Spencer, Times Literary Supplement

Copson is even-handed in his analysis This is as nuanced a defence of secularism as youll find.

Jonathan Wright, Catholic Herald

Andrew Copson looks for genuine debate in Secularism It is natural to review books on atheism and secularism together. The intersection of the two groups is large. But one of the chief benefits of reading Copson is that he enables us to think more deeply about how they diverge.

Maximilian de Gaynesford, The Tablet

an excellent and sympathetic introduction to secularism.

Paradigm Explorer