Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a visiting professor at Sydney University. Her work analyzes comparative elections and public opinion, gender politics, and political communications. Companion volumes by this author and Ronald Inglehart, also published by Cambridge University Press, include Rising Tide (2003) and Cosmopolitan Communications (2009). Ronald Inglehart is Professor of Political Science and program director at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. His research deals with changing belief systems and their impact on social and political change. He helped found the Euro-Barometer surveys and directs the World Values Surveys. Related books include Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in Forty-Three Societies and Development, Cultural Change and Democracy (with Christian Welzel).

"This second edition is an outstanding contribution to the new thought among social scientists about the process of secularization... Norris and Inglehart present convincing arguments soundly anchored in extensive systematic research from around the globe...[They] provide a brilliant, well-written, and thoroughly convincing second edition of what will surely become a classic in the field. This is an indispensable work for any college-level class concerned with the role of religion in the contemporary world. Summing Up: Essential." -J.J. Preston, Sonoma State University, CHOICE Magazine

• Part I. Understanding Secularization: 1. The secularization debate; 2. Measuring secularization; 3. Comparing secularization worldwide; Part II. Case Studies of Religion and Politics: 4. The puzzle of secularization in the United States and Western Europe; 5. A religious revival in post-communist Europe?; 6. Religion and politics in the Muslim world; Part III. The Consequences of Secularization: 7. Religion, the Protestant ethic, and moral values; 8. Religious organizations and social capital; 9. Religious parties and electoral behavior; Part IV. Conclusions: 10. Secularization and its consequences; 11. Re-examining the theory of existential security; 12. Re-examining evidence for the security thesis.