Dictators’ edicts identifying the best possible world, wars of religion, and terrorist attacks disrupting our everyday routines are only the most extreme and exterior features of a historical era that originates well before 9/11. The dramatic events we witness today seem to compel us to reflect on the confrontation between Western and other cultures and about different ways of thinking about the relationships linking state and religion, on the one hand, and, on the other, democracy and totalitarianism. This book’s author offers an original, enlightening interpretation of the times we live in, that is, of a world in which time-honoured ideas and values of secularism and secularization no longer appear suitable for addressing forms of totalitarianism that encourage religious and other conflicts.

Marco Rizzi teaches Early Christian Literature at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.