Customer Reviews
Reading History - By: Neutral, 17 Dec 2008 
This book, together with Burleigh's "Sacred Causes; Religion & Politics From the European Dictators to Al Quaeda", should be read both as narrative history & as a corrective to the atheistic tradition of Marx - & more recently - Hitchins et.al. which seeks to blame religion for man's inhumanity to man.
It was the eighteenth century "Enlightenment" & the "Age of Reason" which created the murderous regimes of the French Revolution (to which Russian Marxists looked for guidance & example). Reason was a vital watchwordin the suppression of opposition, real & imagined, culminatingin the extermination of the Vendee (an example of early modern ethnic cleansing) which embarrasses French Governments even to this day. Neither age, nor sex, were sparedin the savage killing that characterised the overthrow of the French Monarchy & the Church.
According to Rousseau man was born free & was everywherein chains. The Revolution he helped beget produced death & disasterin the name of Reason & Liberty. Those who sought to replace traditional institutions came up with discredited alternatives, Marxism, Communism, Saint Simonism, Phrenology, Positivism, Nationalism & Darwinism which poisoned - & still poison - more minds than religion.
Burleigh develops the theory that traditional religion was replaced by secular religion but never quite explores the common political & moral factors involvedin both. In the final analysis those who were given power exercised itin much the same brutal way, whatever their political, religious or social persuasion. The common factor is humankind, not the formal institutions to which they belong or doctrines they proclaim. The murderous history of "Earthly Powers" is attributable to humankind itself which sought self gratification through the extermination of others. Today it expresses itselfin much the same way as it did 200 years ago.
Burleigh also misunderstands that religion & politics do not intersect, especiallyin European history. The formal conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity turned a minority persecuted sect into a state religionin which membership became more important than belief. By the Eighteenth century politics & religionin Europe were inextricably interlinked so that attacking the Church was attacking another aspect of the State itself.
There is a sense of ironyin that as the nineteenth century wore on churches throughout Europe became sensitive to social issues which expressed itselfin missions to the working classes for whom secularisation had produced social darwinism, selfishness & racism. In France & other continental countries it produced rabid anti-semitism & anti-clericalism, neither of which can be regarded as enlightened or products of reason. European Liberalism spawned as much prejudice as the Church it reviled, although Liberals professed to know better.
Ultimately it was politics which triumphed. One set of rulers replaced another, wallowingin power, moving from one extreme to another. The Alliance of Throne & State was replaced by an Alliance of State & Bourgeoisie against religion using "sacred violence" as an excuse for political failure. As Madame Roland said on her way to the guillotine, "Oh Liberty, what crimes are committedin thy name." Michael Burleigh's book is a salutary reminder of the history some people would rather forget.
A Missed Opportunity - By: Mark Rowantree, 18 Aug 2007 
Michael Burleig is a historian of some re-known & brings his undoubted abilitiesin the creation of this book. His central theses
`Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.' - By: Gerard Noonan, 05 Jul 2007 Burleigh's main thesis is that the human desire to create a utopia here on earth, often religiously-tinged knowingly or otherwise, can unleash ferocious violence & suffering. This argument is not terribly original. In the 1950s, both Czeslaw Milosz (in 'The Captive Mind') & Albert Camus (in 'The Rebel') drew attention to the religious trappings of Communism. Nevertheless, Burleigh brings the empiricism of the historian to bear on the topic, & does so admirably. The main exemplar of secular religion exploredin the book is that of French Revolution. Only two of the book's ten chapters deal with the Revolution, but ideas bornin the cauldron of this seminal event, especially the secular utopian impulse, reoccurred throughout the following century & more, & therefore inform Burleigh's discussion of the period up to the Great War.
Burleigh does not provide a detailed history of the revolution. Rather, he traces the relationship between the French Catholic Church & the ever more radical revolutionariesin the period from the Estates General to the Reign of Terror. Seeing religion as an obstacle to the enlightenment of man, the revolutionaries aimed at its eradicationin the long term & it's domesticationin the short term. This, however, did not stop the new establishment using religiously-tinged vocabulary, motifs, art & public spectaclesin an attempt to inculcate loyalty to the regime amongst the ordinary French populace. `What is Baptism?' enquired the imaginary interlocutorin a handbook aimed at fostering revolutionary enthusiasmin the young. `It is the regeneration of the French begun on 14 July 1789, & soon supported by the entire French nation,' came the reply. `What is Communion?' `It is the association proposed of all peoples by the French Republic henceforth to form on earth only one family of brothers who no longer recognize or worship any idol or tyrant' (p. 82). Robespierre's wish list of the moral principles that should inform the new Republic, with its unstated beliefin the malleability of human nature, anticipates the `New Man' of Soviet propaganda: `In our country we want to substitute ethics for egotism, integrity for honour, principles for habits, duties for protocol, the empire of reason for the tyranny of changing taste...'(p. 91). Yet, when,in 1793 the Catholic inhabitants of the Vendée region, eschewing the revolution's secular religion of liberty, equality & fraternity, rosein rebellion against the increasingly heavy exactions of Paris, the revolutionary forces descended on the region to wage a virtual holy war on the heretics. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by guillotine, cannon fire & mass drowning,in what Burleigh refers to as a `holocaust'. It was a `difficult' mission,in the words of one commander, one that demanded the ordinary soldier renounce `all the affections which nature & gentle habits have made dear to his heart' (p. 99). But somebody had to do it.
Burleigh's sympathy for organized religion is obvious. He sees it as a repository of wisdom that helped people to cope with the complexity of life. He adopts a fairly indulgent attitude towards the autocratic nature of the Church & its actions, while being quite censorious of those `liberals' (that great bogey!) who laboured for the separation of Church & State. The total laicization of elementary teachingin 1880s France, he writes, `signified the end of a venerable tradition based on the unity of religion, knowledge & moral instruction, with the attendant danger that `God', `nation', `society', `morality' & so forth would be taught as mutually exclusive entities with no sensein which they might be used to blunt one another's harder edges' (p. 346). Contrary to simple-minded rationalists who equate religion with superstition, Burleigh writes that `Christian monotheism...separated God from the world & hence encouraged man to make it intelligible' (p. 326). He also draws attention to the `palaeo-liberal religious origins of many essential limitations on secular power that the modern world has inherited from much earlier clashes of Church & state' (p. 326).
Other topics coveredin the book include the secular religions of nationalism & socialism, the alliance of throne & alterin Restoration Europe, the attempts of religiously motivated people to soften the malign effects of industrial capitalism, deracinated intellectuals & purifying terrorismin late 19th century Russia, & the attitude of various religious towards the outbreak of warin 1914. Burleigh is amusing on the utopian fantasies of such intellectuals as Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte & Charles Fourier (seas of lemonade, anyone?), although the totalitarian tinges to their Positivist fantasies are quite frightening. The book does get a little tedious as Burleigh flits between Britain, France & Germany & back again, detailing the ebb & flow of Church-State relationsin the mid- to late- 19th century. Nevertheless, it's a good book. As a personification of the totalitarian mindset Burleigh quotes Shigalov from Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed': `I am perplexed by my own date & my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I start,' observes Shigalov. `Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social problem but mine' (p. 295).
Between two horrors - By: G. J. Weeks, 14 Mar 2006 
Michael Burleigh has written a fine history of religionin Europe from the horrors of th French Revolution to those of the trenches of the first World War & its influence on politics, particularly the rise of nationalism.
He writes well & with great breadth of learning. You need to have a dictionary to hand. He is no bland academic pretending to an objective neutrality. He is scathingly critical of received Marxist views of history.
He concentrates on the big players, France, Germany, Britain, Russia & Italy. Presumably he sees these as the significant participants. This I believe leads to one glaring omission, The Netherlands, & the Protestants there who gave the best critique of the Enligtenment & the revolution it produced. Groen van Prinsterer & Abraham Kuyper are never mentioned. Their Anti-Revolutionary Party whose ground breaking alliance with the Catholics led to Kuyper becoming Prime Minister is ignored. Yet the influence of Kuyper continues today beyong his home country. By contrast Burleigh tells us about many people seemingly forgotten by all.
One final minor quibble. Describing English dissenters as going form being sects to churches sounds to me like Anglican prejudice unless the author thinks that sects grow into churches when they enlarge.
But this is a superb history to impove one's understanding of European history.
