Acton Line cover image

Acton Line

Secularist Violence in Modern History

Mar 26, 2025
51:05

In his latest book, “Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History,” Thomas Albert Howard presents three principal forms of modern secularism that have arisen since the Enlightenment: passive, combative, and eliminationist. Howard argues that the latter two have been especially violence-prone and says Westerners do not fully grasp this because they often mistake passive secularism for secularism as a whole. But a disconcertingly more complicated picture emerges when you adopt a broader global vision.

 

On today’s episode, John Pinheiro, Acton’s director of research, talks to Howard about secularism, what about it we often misunderstand, and his book.

 

Subscribe to our podcasts

 

Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History | Yale University Press

 

Thomas Albert (Tal) Howard | Valparaiso University

 

The Gulag Archipelago | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode