In this book David Martin argues, against Juergen Habermas, that religion and politics share a common mythic basis and that it is misleading to contrast the rationality of politics with the irrationality of religion. In contrast to Richard Dawkins (and New Atheists generally), Martin argues that the approach taken is brazenly unscientific and that the proclivity to violence is a shared feature of religion, nationalism and political ideology alike rooted in the demands of power and social solidarity.

Introduction; Chapter 1 Secularisation, Secularism and the Post-Secular: The Power Dimension; Part I Religion, War and Violence; Chapter 2 The Problematic; Chapter 3 The Rhetorical Issue of Sentences about Religion and Violence; Chapter 4 Modes of Truth and Rival Narratives; Chapter 5 The Rival Narratives; Part II Religion and Nationalism, Religion and Politics; Chapter 6 The Political Future of Religion; Chapter 7 Nationalism and Religion: Collective Identity and Choice; Chapter 8 Charisma and Founding Fatherhood; Chapter 9 Religion and Politics; Chapter 10 Religion, Politics and Secularisation; Chapter 11 No Logos without Mythos; Part III Religion, Power and Emplacement; Chapter 12 The Historical Ecology of European and North American Religion; Chapter 13 Inscribing the General Theory of Secularisation and Its Basic Patterns in the Space/Time of the City; Chapter 14 England and London; Chapter 15 Moscow and Eurasia: Centre and Periphery, Ethno-religion and Voluntarism, Secularisation and De-Secularisation;