The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life

Christian Smith, ed. The secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the secularization of American Public Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. xii + 484 pp. 0 $0 600 .0 00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper), ISBN 0520235614 (cloth); 0520235614 (paper).

The notion of secularization has become a phenomenon receiving such large-scale interest that perhaps we have become disconnected from the possibility of contemplating theoretical alternatives concerning its origins and the nature of its influence. secularization has even recently received attention in fields such as economics, education, philosophy, political science, and theology. However, perhaps scholars in no other field have expended more energy studying secularization than those in sociology. As a subfield within the sociology of religion, the study of secularization has fostered well-developed theories that have led to important understandings concerning the waning influence of religion. The well-developed nature of these efforts has possibly precluded others from receiving due consideration. In his edited work entitled The secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the secularization of American Public Life, Christian Smith challenges the established nature of many of the reigning conceptual frameworks by arguing that the notion of revolution needs to receive consideration as a valid conceptual framework in the sociological study of secularization.

By using the concept of revolution, Smith attempts "to highlight issues of power and authority, mobilization, and cultural and institutional transformation" in terms of what they contribute to the study of secularization (vii). While the absence of these terms in the study of secularization is partly a result of the dominance of other conceptual frameworks, their absence is also determined by their previously abstract nature. According to Smith, terms such as "differentiation and rationalization" have previously contributed to definitions of revolution within the context of sociology (vii). Smith seeks to go beyond these abstract notions to develop an understanding of revolution as a conceptual framework...