Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have convinced many western intellectuals that secularism is the way forward. But most people don’t read their books before deciding whether to be religious. Instead, they inherit their faith from their parents, who often innoculate them against the elegant arguments of secularists. In the race for souls, demography counts for more than eloquence. And demographic reality is very much slanted against secularism: what no one has noticed is that far from declining, the religious are expanding their share of the population because secular birthrates have plunged below replacement.

Based on a wealth of demographic studies, Kaufmann shows that the more religious people are, regardless of income, faith tradition or education, the more children they have. Religious countries have faster population growth than secular ones which is why immigrants are typically much more religious than their secular host societies. The cumulative effect of immigration and religious fertility will be to reverse the secularisation process in the West. Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families.

Within Judaism, the Ultra-Orthodox may achieve majority status over their liberal counterparts by mid-century. Evangelical and neo-traditional Christians will eventually follow suit in the United States and Europe. Islamist Muslims have won the culture war in much of the Muslim world, and their success provides a glimpse of what awaits the Christian West and Israel.

Drawing on extensive demographic research, and considering questions of multiculturalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises – and what this means for the future of western modernity.

View talk at American Enterprise Institute, Washington, May 20, 2011

View talk at New America Foundation, Washington, May 18, 2011

View talk from Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House, Oct 3, 2010

Hear the interview with John Cleary on Australian Broadcasting Corporation ‘Sunday Nights’on the book

See youtube video of Eric’s  talk at the RSA on April 15

Upcoming

• London book launch of Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics (co-edited with Jack Goldstone and Monica Duffy Toft) slated for 19 April at Birkbeck College, University of London
• Forthcoming talks at Political Studies Association conference, Belfast, April 2-5 (including chairing special Political Quarterly panel on Northern Ireland Peace Process in an age of austerity)
• Editor of special issue on Northern Ireland, Political Quarterly, Mar 2012
• Upcoming co-edited book, with Robert Schertzer and Eric Taylor Woods, Nationalism and Conflict Management (Routledge, 2012)
• 7 March – presenting at LSE Religion Forum seminar, on ‘Primordialists and Constructionists: From Nationalism to Religion’, 6-730, in room 1.11 in Cowdray House (COW), Portugal Street, London WC2A 2AE

Latest Articles, Appearances and News

• See discussion of the book in Lenore Skenazy, ‘The Allure of the Burka,’ Jewish Daily Forward, Jan. 30
• Referred to in ‘Spengler’ (a.k.a. David Goldman of India Times) book, How Civilizations Die
• Keynote speaker, Atlantic  College (United World Schools) Peace Conference, Jan. 27, 2012
• An abbreviated comment of mine on Craig Calhoun, the new LSE director, and the fact that his views on globalization, cosmopolitalism, elite capitalism and the nation are diametrically opposed to those of his predecessors (Giddens, Davies) and Giddens’ intellectual fellow traveller David Held, whose centre got in hot water over the Qaddafi scandal. They also don’t easily fit with the LSE reality, i.e. educator of the global elite. See ‘diary’ in current issue (191) of Prospect: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/
• Mention in Rich Cincotta, ‘Life Begins After 25: Demography And Societal Timing Of Arab Spring – Analysis,’ Eurasia Review, Jan. 18
• Jan 11, 2012, Speaking at Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
• Jan 10, 2012, Speaking at Washington launch of Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics (co-edited with Jack Goldstone and Monica Duffy Toft), Paradigm Press, January 10, 2012, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC
• See reference to book  in Lenore Skenazy’s recent article on the Beit Shemesh riots: ‘What the well-dressed religious fanatic’s wearing’, Rockford Register-Star, Jan. 6, 2012 and Penfield Post, Jan. 9
• Academic journal article, ‘Primordialists and Constructionists: A typology of theories of religion’, September (prepublication version). Forthcoming in Religion, Brain and Behavior
• Article in Political Insight magazine featured on LSE Politics blog, ‘What do the social sciences have in common with baseball? The story of Moneyball, academic impact, and quantitative methods’
• Launch of Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics (co-edited with Jack Goldstone and Monica Duffy Toft), Paradigm Press, December 13, 2011, Foreign Policy Research Institute (link to event details), Philadelphia
• Mention in Allan Carlson, ‘Demography, Destiny and New Foreign Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,’ Foreign Policy Research Institute, Dec. 12, Philadelphia, PA
• See my recent review, ‘Peace in our Time’, of Steven Pinker’s new book on the decline of violence in human history, ‘The Better Angels of our Nature’, Literary Review, December.
• I discuss the lessons of the Oakland A’s use of statistical analysis, featured in the new movie ‘Moneyball’ (starring Brad Pitt) for social science as ‘Moneyball: Can Sports Statistics Save Political Studies?’, Political Insight, December
• Talk on ‘The Lenses of Nationhood: an optical model of identity,’ at Centre for Ethnicity and Citizenship, University of Bristol, Nov. 17
• Talk at Royal Holloway University of London, History Seminar, Nov. 7 podcast here
• My Op-Ed on Malthusians, Cornucopians and 7 billion people: ‘Rural and religious fuel the world’s population boom,’ Providence Journal, Nov.6, 2011
• Academic journal article, with Vegard Skirbekk and Anne Goujon, ‘American political affiliation, 2003–43: A cohort component projection,’ Population Studies, published online Nov. 5
• Mention in Nigel Barber, ‘ When Will Atheism Prevail Over Religion?,’ Huffington Post, Nov.3, 2011
• ‘Northern Ireland: Fragile Peace in an Age of Austerity’ , invite-only roundtable I organised at Birkbeck College, Council Room, Oct. 14, 2011. Basis of special issue of Political Quarterly in early 2012 and special panel on Northern Ireland at Political Studies Association, Belfast, 2-6 April 2012. Participant biographies Programme
• ‘Religious revival: Western societies are being dramatically reshaped by the strong birth rate of religious people,‘ Bright Blue, Autumn 2011, p. 37
• Interviewed as part of Alan Greenblatt, ‘As Europe Ages, Its Economies Look Vulnerable,‘ NPR.org, September 24
• Interview on Clay Naff’s radio show, ‘Science Odyssey: Demography Shows How Religion Drives Population Growth’, September 10
• Academic journal article, ‘Reflections on the Swiss Sonderfall,’ Nations and Nationalism, vol. 17 (September 2011), pp. 815-20
• Academic journal article, with Eric Woods and Robert Schertzer, ‘Ethno-national conflict and its Management,’ Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 49.2, April 2011, pp. 153-61
• Academic journal article, ‘The Demography of Ethnic Conflict,’ Journal of Ethnopolitics (also Editor of special section on ‘The Politics of Ethnic Demography’) vol.3, no. 4, September 2011, pp. 367-8
• Academic journal article, ‘Demographic Change and Conflict in Northern Ireland: Reconciling Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence,‘ Journal of Ethnopolitics, vol. 3, no. 4, September, 2011
• Conference paper, ‘Ethnic and State History as Determinants of Ethnic Fractionalization,‘ American Political Science Association, Seattle, September 2
• Academic journal article, with Anne Goujon and Vegard Skirbekk, ‘The End of Secularization in Europe?: A Socio-Demographic Perspective,’ Sociology of Religion, published online August 8
• ‘Demography and the Future of Religion: Eric Kaufmann’s Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?’, Vox Nova, August 3
• Discussion in Sharperiron.org, June 12, 2011
• Discussion in Blaze.com, June 11, 2011
• Television Interview on Fox News Live, June 10, 2011
• Discussion of my (and colleagues Vegard Skirbekk and Anne Goujon) predictions for US religion in 2043 in David Briggs, ARDA ‘Ahead of the Trend’ and Huffington Post, May 25
• ‘Book Review: Between Religion and Politics’, Muhammad Khan, Muslim News, May 27, 2011
• Professor: the Religious Population will inherit the earth, Hal Boyd, Deseret News, May 24, 2011
• Review of the book by Frank Ellis, Quarterly Review, Spring 2011
• May 20, 2011, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC, 2:30 pm
• May 18, 2011, New America Foundation, Washington, DC, 12:15 pm
• May 16, 2011, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC, 3 pm overview clip Arab spring clip photos on flickr
• May 2011 - Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth launches in USA
• April/May 2011 – review of book by Allan Carlson in The Family in America, Winter issue
• Along with colleagues at IIASA, I helped write the Europe section of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ‘The Future of the Global Muslim Population’ report, which was widely cited in the press
• Note my question to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the PSA/Hansard Debate (minute 30:20). Did he answer it well? In part. See minute 36: 50 for his response.
• 26 December, Andy Walton, Sunday Breakfast Show, Premier Christian Radio, 8:00 am.
• ‘The Future of Religion’, Studies, December
• 1 December, at Open Discussions, Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London W1H 4LP
• Mention of book in ‘Survival of the Godliest: Does strong religious belief provide an evolutionary advantage?’, Philip Longman, Big Questions Online, 12 November
• 17 November, LSE Forum on Religion, Cañada Blanch room, London School of Economics, 5:30-7 pm
• 21 October, Razib Khan, ‘The Wheel of History turns to the gods’, Discovery Magazine
• 7 October, 6:30 pm – appeared on Battle of Ideas Satellite panel, Papal plots, burqa bans: what does it mean to be secular today? , Foyle’s Bookshop, London
• 3 October, 11 AM at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House
• 2 October, Miriam Cosic, ‘Religious baby boom primed to send shock waves through secular world’, The Australian
• Hear me on Philip Adams Late Night live, ABC radio, Wednesday 29 September, in Sydney, Australia
• Hear interview on Sunday Night Safran, Triple J radio, Sydney, Australia
• See my Op-Ed, ‘Out of mouths of babes – religious will rise as secular birth rates fall‘, Sydney Morning Herald, September 20, 2010
• My review of Doug Saunders’ ‘Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping Our World’ was published in Literary Review in September
• I review Pascal Bruckner’s excellent book, ‘Tyranny of Guilt’, in the August issue of Prospect magazine
• See my recent piece for the Irish Times on the book, ‘Population boom in third world provides a boost for religions’, 20 July
• Note my question to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the PSA/Hansard Debate (minute 30:20). Did he answer it well? In part. See minute 36: 50 for his response.

Reviews of the book