Religion and the Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularisation in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA since the 1960s, by Callum G. Brown

This book by Callum G. Brown brings together three powerful revolutions: the secular revolution, the demographic revolution and the revolution in women’s identities. It is the bond between these three seismic shifts that is the central focus of this fascinating analysis. They are, Brown argues, ‘intimately and causatively interconnected’ (p. 1). Each arose from the contentious, but nonetheless profound, impact of the 1960s. Together they ushered in a secular era that is, in Brown’s perception, as distinct and epochal as any previous era in the history of the west (p. 29). Indeed, this book is, at root, a highly sophisticated and contentious study of exactly what it is the sixties ‘did’ to us (p. 8). The ‘us’ in this case is four nations—Canada, Ireland, the UK and the United States. Brown’s primary intent is to explore statistically the relationship of ‘mutual causation’ that exists between religious change (most importantly religious decline and the growth of what he calls ‘no religionism’) and demographic, economic and educational phenomena; however, he does so with a firm conviction that statistics alone are not enough. It is the fundamental assertion of this book that ‘discourses, and popular revolt against them, change the way people live their lives’ (p. xi). Time series and snapshot analyses are not offered as definitive encapsulations of religious and social change, but rather as further layers that strengthen our understanding of the profound connectivity of economic, social and religious factors in the cultural landscape of late-twentieth-century society. As a reader, it is important to remember that the vast compilation of empirical data which Brown offers in this book is an extension and development of his former book, The Death of Christian Britain (2002), and also an anticipation of the final volume of the trilogy which is yet to come (p. 258). The statistics are meant to be read in close conjunction with Brown’s emphasis on language and individual testimony as a multifaceted approach to the vital task of understanding the post-modern period historically.

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