Recent books by, among others, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have thrust atheism firmly into the popular, media, and academic spotlight. This so-called New Atheism is arguably the most striking development in western socio-religious culture of the past decade or more. As such, it has spurred fertile (and often heated) discussions both within, and between, a diverse range of disciplines. Yet atheism, and the New Atheism, are by no meansco-extensive. Interesting though it indeed is, the New Atheism is a single, historically and culturally specific manifestation of positive atheism (the that there is/are no God/s), which is itself but one form of a far deeper, broader, and more significant global phenomenon.The Oxford Handbook of Atheism is a pioneering edited volume, exploring atheism-understood in the broad sense of 'an absence of belief in the existence of a God or gods'-in all the richness and diversity of its historical and contemporary expressions. Bringing together an international team of established and emerging scholars, it probes the varied manifestations and implications of unbelief from an array of disciplinary perspectives (philosophy, history, sociology, anthropologydemography, psychology, natural sciences, gender and sexuality studies, literary criticism, film studies, musicology) and in a range of global contexts (Western Europe, North America, post-communist Europe, the Islamic world, Japan, India). Both surveying and synthesizing previous work, and presenting the majorfruits of innovative recent research, the handbook is set to be a landmark text for the study of atheism.

Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse: Introduction: The Study of Atheism; 1: Definitions and Debates; 1 Stephen Bullivant: Defining Atheism; 2 T. J. Mawson: The Case against Atheism; 3 A. C. Grayling: Critiques of Theistic Arguments; 4 Graham Oppy: Arguments for Atheism; 5 Michael L. Peterson: Problems of Evil; 6 Erik J. Wielenberg: Atheism and Morality; 7 Kimberly A. Blessing: Atheism and the Meaningfulness of Life; 8 Brian Davies: Aquinas and Atheism; 2: History of (Western) Atheism; 9 David Sedley: The Pre-Socratics to the Hellenistic Age; 10 Mark Edwards: The First Millennium; 11 Dorothea Weltecke: The Medieval Period; 12 Denis Robichaud: Renaissance and Reformation; 13 Alan Charles Kors: The Age of Enlightenment; 14 David Nash: The (Long) Nineteenth Century; 15 Callum Brown: The Twentieth Century; 16 Thomas Zenk: New Atheism; 3: Worldviews and Systems; 17 Stephen Law: Humanism; 18 Alison Stone: Existentialism; 19 Peter Thompson: Marxism; 20 Charles Pigden: Analytic Philosophy; 21 Jacques Berlinerblau: Jewish Atheism; 22 Andrew Skilton: Buddhism; 23 Anne Vallely: Jainism; 24 Jessica Frazier: Hinduism; 4: Atheism and the Natural Sciences; 25 Michael Ruse: Naturalism and the Scientific Method; 26 Taner Edis: Atheism and the Rise of Science; 27 David P. Barash: Atheism and Darwinism; 28 Victor J. Stenger: Atheism and the Physical Sciences; 5: Atheism and the Social Sciences; 29 Frank L. Pasquale and Barry A. Kosmin: Atheism and the Secularization Thesis; 30 Miguel Farias: Psychology of Atheism; 31 Jonathan Lanman: Atheism and Cognitive Science; 32 Phil Zuckerman: Atheism and Societal Health; 33 Melanie A. Brewster: Atheism, Gender, and Sexuality; 34 Karen Hwang: Atheism, Health and Well-being; 35 Ralph W. Hood and Zhuo Chen: Conversion and Deconversion; 6: Global Expressions; 36 Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera: A World of Atheism: Global Demographics; 37 Lois Lee: Western Europe; 38 Ryan T. Cragun, Joseph H. Hammer, Jesse M. Smith: North America; 39 Irena Borowik, Branko Ancic, Radoslaw Tyrala: Central and Eastern Europe; 40 Samuli Schielke: Islamic World; 41 Johannes Quack: India; 42 Sarah Whylly: Japan; 7: Atheism and the Arts; 43 Bernard Schweizer: Literature; 44 J. Sage Elwell: Visual Arts; 45 Paul Bertagnolli: Music; 46 Nina Power: Film