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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Todd H. Weir, âSecularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germanyâ (Cambridge UP, 2014)
Description: If you look up the word âsecularâ in just about about any English-language dictionary, youâll find that the word denotes, among other things, something that is not religious. This ânot-religious-nessâ would seem to be the modern essence of the word. If a government is secular, it canât be religious. If a court is secular, it canât be religious. If a party is secular, it canât be religious.
But, as Todd H. Weir points out in his fascinating book Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession (Cambridge University Press, 2014), the origins of what...