Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century

· Profile Books
1 review
Ebook
330
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

Dawkins and Hitchens have convinced many western intellectuals that secularism is the way forward. But most people don't read their books before deciding whether to be religious. Instead, they inherit their faith from their parents, who often innoculate them against the elegant arguments of secularists. And what no one has noticed is that far from declining, the religious are expanding their share of the population: in fact, the more religious people are, the more children they have. The cumulative effect of immigration from religious countries, and religious fertility will be to reverse the secularisation process in the West. Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families.

Within Judaism, the Ultra-Orthodox may achieve majority status over their liberal counterparts by mid-century. Islamist Muslims have won the culture war in much of the Muslim world, and their success provides a glimpse of what awaits the Christian West and Israel. Based on a wealth of demographic research, considering questions of multiculturalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises - and what this means for the future of western modernity.
Dawkins and Hitchens have convinced many western intellectuals that secularism is the way forward. But most people don't read their books before deciding whether to be religious. Instead, they inherit their faith from their parents, who often innoculate them against the elegant arguments of secul...

Discover more

Ratings and reviews

1 review

About the author

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. A visiting Fellow at the Kennedy School, Harvard, in 2008-9, he is the author of Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth (Profile 2010) and has written on religion and demography for Newsweek, Foreign Policy and Prospect, among others.
Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. A visiting Fellow at the Kennedy School, Harvard, in 2008-9, he is the author of Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth (Profile 2010) and has written on religion and demography for Newsweek, Foreign Policy and Prosp...

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.