Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West » (Reprint)

Mark Lilla is Professor of Humanities and Religion at Columbia University. He was previously Professor at the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago. A noted intellectual historian and frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, he is the author of The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and G.B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern. He lives in New York City.

A brilliant account of religion's role in the political thinking of the West, from the Enlightenment to the close of World War II.

The wish to bring political life under God's authority is nothing new, and it's clear that today religious passions are again driving world politics, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest-and its surprising role in shaping Western thought. Making us look deeper into our beliefs about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West's unique trajectory and how to remain on it. Illuminating and challenging, The Stillborn God is a watershed in the history of ideas.

The New York Times - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

One can read Lilla's story and draw precisely the opposite normative conclusions from the ones he asks us to draw: that the West's experimental testing and retesting of political theology, trying to see if there is any safe way of mixing politics and religion, has delivered an answer from which all may learn. Separating church and state works; mixing them tends toward disaster. But draw what normative conclusions you will from The Stillborn God, this provocative book is to be applauded for doing justice to the complexity of our long attempt to reconcile our transcendental aspirations with human well-being.