As we hurtle towards the election, in a presidential campaign more chock-full of religion than (I’m prepared to say) any in American history, it’s worth pondering how religion has operated in American public life during the administration of George W. Bush. To that end, I enthusiastically recommend God’s Democracy: American Religion After September 11 by the distinguished Italian scholar Emilio Gentile. The book, the third volume in our Praeger series on Religion, Politics, and Public Life, represents for my money the shrewdest outsider’s eye on religion in America since Tocqueville. Gentile knows the country well, and he brings to the subject a career studying political religions in Europe generally and Italian Fascism in particular. He is masterful in showing how, in the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration went some ways towards transforming the inclusive American civil religion into a political religion fit for partisan political combat. Order your copy today.