What does it mean that we live in a secular age today? What has happened between 1500 - when God still had a firm place in the scientific cosmos, in the social fabric, and in the everyday lives of people - and today, when belief in God, at least in the Western world, is just one option among many? To determine this transformation and explore its consequences for contemporary society, the grand history of secularization in the North Atlantic world from the early modern period to the present must be told - a Herculean task that Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor takes on in his highly anticipated new book. With a focus on Latin Christianity, the predominant faith in Europe, he reconstructs in almost lavish detail the crucial lines of development in nature.