Kaplan Sat Subject Test, World History 2009-2010 Book

The title of this book is misleading.

As the author himself states in his introduction, "My aim is as much popular and polemical as it is analytical" and then, "It might seem that by focusing so much on the Christian religion I am doing a disservice to secular ideology's uniqueness and integrity. This is a danger." It is indeed a "danger". The book would be best titled something like: "A Christian Perspective on Secularism in the UK". A title such as a "Short History of Secularism" implies that one is going to be informed about secularism and this really isn't the case here. The book is much more about the development of Western, and more specifically UK, Christianity and how it has tried to adapt to a changing environment. The particular theory that the author promotes is that Western liberalism has developed from Christianity. The opposite argument that modern Christianity has had to adapt because of a liberal secular critic and is slowly disintegrating under pressure from rational argument is not favoured.

The unpleasant thing about this book is that it is very biased. Not least of which is that Agnosticism is not mentioned at all with the effect of pushing people into two main camps: Christians (no matter how diluted) and Atheists. To have a book entitled a Short History of Secularism not using the word Agnosticism once yet using Atheism many times beggars belief (pun intended). I should imagine any thoughtful Agnostic would find this ignorance, or purposeful disregard, of their philosophical position astounding in a book with this title. Also, there are many references to the West being secular whereas countries such as the UK are not secular as the Church of England has special priviledges as the Established Church (see ).

I should perhaps state that my own philosophical position is not that of an agnostic or atheist but do see myself as a secularist (god being a human concept ... mine is therefore made up by me ... on most days it equates with totality).

Overall: this book appears to me as a book from some religious ghetto. If I'm wrong and the readership is not confined to some ghetto then the implication is worrying i.e. that this is the current level of understanding and debate on secularism.