Galen Watts is a Banting Fellow at KU Leuven's Centre for Sociological Research.

This is a very important book. Watts challenges ideas of modernity as dismal and alienating, illuminates the deep traction of Romanticism, and argues that the 1960s triggered a fundamental shift in contemporary social life. Rooted in cultural sociology, this work is deeply historical and replete with richly empirical case studies. It is a decisive intervention into the argument about what life is like today.

• Part I: The Spiritual Turn 1: From 'Religion' to 'Spirituality' 2: A Brief History of the Religion of the Heart 3: 'Spirituality' Today Part II: Romantic Liberal Modernity 4: The 1960s and the Rise of Romantic Liberalism 5: The Making of Romantic Liberal Modernity 6: Mapping the Romantic Liberal Institutional Order 7: Romantic Liberal Modernity and Its Critics Part III: The Romantic Liberal Subject: An Ethnographic Snapshot 8: Moral Reform and Shifting Involvements at a Twelve-Step Group 9: Prosperity and Positivity at a 'Greedy Institution' 10: Public Performance and Political Ambivalences at a Public Speaking Club 11: Conclusion: Seeing Ourselves Anew Appendix: Research Methods Bibliography

Galen Watts is a Banting Fellow at KU Leuven's Centre for Sociological Research.

This is a very important book. Watts challenges ideas of modernity as dismal and alienating, illuminates the deep traction of Romanticism, and argues that the 1960s triggered a fundamental shift in contemporary social life. Rooted in cultural sociology, this work is deeply historical and replete with richly empirical case studies. It is a decisive intervention into the argument about what life is like today.

• Part I: The Spiritual Turn 1: From 'Religion' to 'Spirituality' 2: A Brief History of the Religion of the Heart 3: 'Spirituality' Today Part II: Romantic Liberal Modernity 4: The 1960s and the Rise of Romantic Liberalism 5: The Making of Romantic Liberal Modernity 6: Mapping the Romantic Liberal Institutional Order 7: Romantic Liberal Modernity and Its Critics Part III: The Romantic Liberal Subject: An Ethnographic Snapshot 8: Moral Reform and Shifting Involvements at a Twelve-Step Group 9: Prosperity and Positivity at a 'Greedy Institution' 10: Public Performance and Political Ambivalences at a Public Speaking Club 11: Conclusion: Seeing Ourselves Anew Appendix: Research Methods Bibliography

Galen Watts is a Banting Fellow at KU Leuven's Centre for Sociological Research.

This is a very important book. Watts challenges ideas of modernity as dismal and alienating, illuminates the deep traction of Romanticism, and argues that the 1960s triggered a fundamental shift in contemporary social life. Rooted in cultural sociology, this work is deeply historical and replete with richly empirical case studies. It is a decisive intervention into the argument about what life is like today.

• Part I: The Spiritual Turn 1: From 'Religion' to 'Spirituality' 2: A Brief History of the Religion of the Heart 3: 'Spirituality' Today Part II: Romantic Liberal Modernity 4: The 1960s and the Rise of Romantic Liberalism 5: The Making of Romantic Liberal Modernity 6: Mapping the Romantic Liberal Institutional Order 7: Romantic Liberal Modernity and Its Critics Part III: The Romantic Liberal Subject: An Ethnographic Snapshot 8: Moral Reform and Shifting Involvements at a Twelve-Step Group 9: Prosperity and Positivity at a 'Greedy Institution' 10: Public Performance and Political Ambivalences at a Public Speaking Club 11: Conclusion: Seeing Ourselves Anew Appendix: Research Methods Bibliography