A vital defence of the Enlightenment as a democratic force against state and corporation and a striking atheist attack on “fundamentalist” atheists such as Richard Dawkins

Today, media commentators, intellectuals and politicians declare that western science and rationality are threatened by irrational enemies. Evangelicals, postmodernists, and Islamists are on the march, they say. The Rome that science built is under siege. But there’s a problem with these stirring attempts to defend the truth. They aren’t true.

In this urgent new book, Dan Hind confronts the great machinery of deception in which we live, and which now threatens to destroy our civilization. In particular, he takes to task a group of prominent intellectuals who have exaggerated the threat posed by the so-called forces of unreason — religion, postmodernism and other “mumbo-jumbo.” The commentators, says Hind, distract us from much more pressing threats to an open democratic society based on freedom of speech and inquiry.

This book shows that the real threats to reason aren’t wacky or foreign or stupid; they reside in our state and corporate bureaucracies — and, one way or another, they probably pay your salary. In recovering the idea of Enlightenment, Hind explores its vital importance and reveals how it can help us to achieve a truly democratic politics, in which we have a genuine say in the decisions that are taken on our behalf.

“Fine, lucid and sharp ... well written and worth reading before the next wave of western tanks crosses a border, somewhere in the Middle East.” — The Sunday Times

“Hind’s The Threat to Reason is in the tradition of those great works that ask big and fundamental, yet curiously unexamined, questions. It is a profound and much-needed contribution, for what Hind carefully demonstrates is that the concept of Enlightenment is being used in today's world to justify some very unenlightened practices.” — Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation

“The exciting thing about Dan Hind’s book is his refusal to treat the Enlightenment as merely an episode in our past. Instead he sees it as an ongoing enterprise which has to engage with current developments, such as religious fundamentalism, in a new dialogue.” — Larry Siedentop, author of Democracy in Europe

DAN HIND has worked in publishing since 1998 and is currently editorial director of Bodley Head. His journalism has appeared in Lobster and the Times Literary Supplement; The Threat to Reason is his first book. He lives in London. See Dan Hind’s blog on his book: http://thethreattoreason.blogspot.com/.