Culture and the Death of God

Eagleton Terry

How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking book the contradictions, difficulties and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Engaging with a phenomenally wide range of ideas, issues and thinkers from the Enlightenment to today, Eagleton discusses the state of religion before and after 9/11, the ironies surrounding Western capitalism's part in spawning not only secularism but also fundamentalism, and the unsatisfactory surrogates for the Almighty invented in the post-Enlightenment era. The author reflects on the unique capacities of religion, the possibilities of culture and art as modern paths to salvation, the so-called war on terror's impact on atheism, and a host of other topics of concern to those who envision a future in which just and compassionate communities thrive. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently-needed intervention into our perilous political present.

About the Author

Terry Eagleton is Distinguished Professor of Literature, University of Lancaster, and Excellence in English Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Notre Dame. He is the author of more than 40 books on literary theory, postmodernism, politics, ideology and religion, among them "Why Marx was Right" and his recent book "How to Read Literature", both published by Yale. He divides his time between Northern Ireland, Dublin, and the U.S.

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