I have just come across a fascinating review from the 2 April edition of the New York Times Book Review, about EARTHLY POWERS: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe From the French Revolution to the Great War, by Michael Burleigh.

The book explores the decline of religion in Europe during the 19th century, the consequence of which was total war in the 20th. But the review by Mark Lilla, Godless Europe, is itself worth the price of a book.

Here is an excerpt:

Among the many stories Europeans tell about themselves, none is more tenacious than the legend of Europe's secularization. It goes something like this. After many dark centuries of cultural backwardness and political tyranny sanctified by Roman Catholicism, followed by a period of maniacal confessional conflict set off by the Protestant Reformation, Europe in the 17th century began a slow but steady exit from religion. By the 18th century the leading lights of the Enlightenment had issued a public declaration of independence from God and his priests, which then became a battle plan for the war of attrition against religion that began with the French Revolution.

The outcome of this conflict was settled from the start, and already in the early 19th century the center of gravity in European life had shifted from problems of faith to those of class, industrialization, urbanization, nationalism and colonialism. The "long" 19th century, from the French Revolution to World War I, culminated in a crisis involving all these new factors, and the result was total war in the 20th. After this catastrophe, Europe was divided geographically and ideologically, but still unified in believing that the challenge of religion was over. Since World War II, Europeans have stared in blank amazement across the Atlantic at a new global power whose citizens and even leaders seem to believe myths about the old bearded man in the sky. They call this American "exceptionalism," on the assumption that living without God is the ultimate destiny of the human race.

Things change. Today we can be forgiven for thinking that Europe, not the United States, is the exception. Wherever we now cast our gaze around the globe, we are met with the spectacle of individuals and whole cultures set spiritually ablaze, and eager to spread the flame to others. The Old World is different: though Christian belief remains strong in some European countries, like Poland, and Islam is a potent force among Muslims across the Continent, contemporary Europe is the closest thing to a godless civilization the world has ever known. Does this place it in the vanguard of world history? That is what many Europeans think, which is why they have been caught off guard by the challenge of radical Islam even in their own backyard. They find it hard to believe that people can still take God seriously and want to shape society according to his dictates.