100 Books Like Dominion

In this book, the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor challenges the notion that modernization automatically leads to secularization.

Instead of viewing modernity as either the decline of religion or subtraction of religion from public life, Taylor presents the idea that modernity brings about the expansion and variety of religious beliefs. In Taylor’s view Christianity has been relativized insofar as it has been rendered but one kind of belief among others.

He also argues that many transcendent values have been replaced by immanent concerns. But in certain important ways the book is still hopeful. It is a very long text, but it is definitely important reading for anyone navigating faith, spirituality, and the search for meaning in today’s world.

Like Stone’s book, this is a book about history, not wokeness. It’s not an easy read, but it’s worth the effort.

It recounts the triumph of scientific reasoning and liberal tolerance over several decades in the mid-twentieth century. That triumph was largely brought about by the “secularization” of American culture, spearheaded by Jewish intellectuals.

I read it long before wokeness was a thing – it was published in 1996 – and found it interesting but not particularly relevant to anything I was thinking about. But when wokeness came along, it suddenly hit me that this new religion was taking us backwards, back to the beginning of Hollinger’s story.

If that trend continues, we are in danger of losing the gains that science and tolerance have produced.

This is the philosophical bedrock of the modern struggle for economic justice. It’s a cornerstone of my own book, actually.

“To sustain your existential identity,” writes Haaglund, “is to lead your life in light of what you value.”

Freedom is the ability to sustain that existential identity. It means having more time than that which you need to survive. The more time you have to live your life in light of what you value, the freer you are.

A society in which an entire class of people can spend their entire lifetimes working and remain poor is not a free society.

And yes, it’s a philosophy book, but it’s clear and accessible. 

This book does a phenomenal job of building on a biblical foundation to help readers see the relevance of their work to God and their spiritual journey. I love how this book helps me develop strategies for positioning my work to build an eternal legacy.

Jordan Raynor also helped me to see how my view of work can offer important insights about heaven. I feel affirmed in my career and the significant value it can bring to the kingdom of God. 

Callum Brown is a card-carrying humanist and one of the greatest (and most combative) historians of modern secularism. This book’s concept is very simple: he’s conducted 85 in-depth interviews with self-identified atheists in Europe and the United States about how they got that way, how they understand their world and construct their values, and how they relate to the religions that some of them used to embrace. I think his celebration of these good people blinds him to the very particular historical processes at work here, but I challenge anyone to read this book and not acknowledge that our world has profoundly changed in the past half-century.

Eric was my PhD supervisor and was finishing the book as I began my thesis. This gave me a chance to have an insight into the thinking and the process behind the book’s creation as well as an opportunity to read the manuscript. Combining serious analysis of the data with an astute and observative reading of big global trends, this book sets out one of the most important trends underway today—the burgeoning numbers in strict, world-denying bearing a large number of children and able to hang onto them. A decade on, as secular birth rates plummet, the thesis is more valid than ever.

Robert Benne interviewed me for his book, which offers case studies of several different kinds of religious universities. You know the interview is conducted well, when the person asking the questions is forcing you to think anew about your own implementation of vision. 

Benne asked me how we socialize faculty into our distinctive vision. I immediately sensed that we did not do enough and addressed the issue more fully both in practice and in one of my books.

At a Catholic university, one should also think about how other kinds of religious universities define and realize their mission. This book accomplishes that.

Silencing the Sea follows Palestinian poets' debates about their craft as they traverse multiple and competing realities of secularism and religion, expulsion and occupation, art, politics, immortality, death, fame, and obscurity. Khaled Furani eloquently leads his reader along ancient roads and across Israeli military checkpoints to join the poets' worlds and engage with the rhythms of their lifelong journeys in Islamic and Arabic history, language, and verse. This excursion offers newfound understandings of how today's secular age goes far beyond doctrine, to inhabit our very senses, imbuing all that we see, hear, feel, and utter.

Poetry, the traditional repository of Arab history, has become the preeminent medium of Palestinian memory in exile. In probing poets' writings, this work investigates how struggles over poetic form can host larger struggles over authority, knowledge, language, and freedom. It reveals a very intimate and venerated world, entwining art, intellect, and politics, narrating previously untold… show more.

I really enjoyed reading this book because it offers a deeply original perspective on Hindu nationalism by shifting the focus away from the usual Hindu Right organizations and instead examining how its idioms infiltrated the Congress party in the United Provinces.

Gould’s analysis is important because it reveals how Hindu nationalist ideas operated beneath the surface of a party officially committed to secularism. This covert influence, as he shows, played a key role in alienating Muslim communities and complicating the communal landscape in the run-up to Partition.

I appreciate how the book draws on a rich variety of historical sources to unpack these dynamics, making it a significant contribution to our understanding of how political language shapes ideological outcomes. 

This book profoundly appeals to the history nerd in me. It places the American Spiritualist movement in its historical and cultural context, examining everything from the connection between spiritualism and 19th-century technological innovations to the role of gender and sexuality in the séance room.

While it’s easy to dismiss spiritualism as a fringe oddity, McGarry’s book illuminates just how vital it was in shaping American culture and politics as we know them today. The academic language is a little dense in places, but that did not detract from my enjoyment of the meticulous scholarship and the enthralling subject matter.