Recent books by, among others, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have thrust atheism firmly into the popular, media, and academic spotlight. This so-called New Atheism is arguably the most striking development in western socio-religious culture of the past decade or more. As such, it has spurred fertile (and often heated) discussions both within, and between, a diverse range of disciplines. Yet atheism, and the New Atheism, are by no means co-extensive. Interesting though it indeed is, the New Atheism is a single, historically and culturally specific manifestation of positive atheism (the that there is/are no God/s), which is itself but one form of a far deeper, broader, and more significant global phenomenon.

The Oxford Handbook of Atheism is a pioneering edited volume, exploring atheism—understood in the broad sense of `an absence of belief in the existence of a God or gods`—in all the richness and diversity of its historical and contemporary expressions. Bringing together an international team of established and emerging scholars, it probes the varied manifestations and implications of unbelief from an array of disciplinary perspectives (philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, demography, psychology, natural sciences, gender and sexuality studies, literary criticism, film studies, musicology) and in a range of global contexts (Western Europe, North America, post-communist Europe, the Islamic world, Japan, India). Both surveying and synthesizing previous work, and presenting the major fruits of innovative recent research, the handbook is set to be a landmark text for the study of atheism.

Table of Contents
Introduction: The Study of Atheism, Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse
1: Definitions and Debates
1: Defining Atheism, Stephen Bullivant
2: The Case against Atheism, T. J. Mawson
3: Critiques of Theistic Arguments, A. C. Grayling
4: Arguments for Atheism, Graham Oppy
5: Problems of Evil, Michael L. Peterson
6: Atheism and Morality, Erik J. Wielenberg
7: Atheism and the Meaningfulness of Life, Kimberly A. Blessing
8: Aquinas and Atheism, Brian Davies
2: History of (Western) Atheism
9: The Pre-Socratics to the Hellenistic Age, David Sedley
10: The First Millennium, Mark Edwards
11: The Medieval Period, Dorothea Weltecke
12: Renaissance and Reformation, Denis Robichaud
13: The Age of Enlightenment, Alan Charles Kors
14: The (Long) Nineteenth Century, David Nash
15: The Twentieth Century, Callum Brown
16: New Atheism, Thomas Zenk
3: Worldviews and Systems
17: Humanism, Stephen Law
18: Existentialism, Alison Stone
19: Marxism, Peter Thompson
20: Analytic Philosophy, Charles Pigden
21: Jewish Atheism, Jacques Berlinerblau
22: Buddhism, Andrew Skilton
23: Jainism, Anne Vallely
24: Hinduism, Jessica Frazier
4: Atheism and the Natural Sciences
25: Naturalism and the Scientific Method, Michael Ruse
26: Atheism and the Rise of Science, Taner Edis
27: Atheism and Darwinism, David P. Barash
28: Atheism and the Physical Sciences, Victor J. Stenger
5: Atheism and the Social Sciences
29: Atheism and the Secularization Thesis, Frank L. Pasquale and Barry A. Kosmin
30: Psychology of Atheism, Miguel Farias
31: Atheism and Cognitive Science, Jonathan Lanman
32: Atheism and Societal Health, Phil Zuckerman
33: Atheism, Gender, and Sexuality, Melanie A. Brewster
34: Atheism, Health and Well-being, Karen Hwang
35: Conversion and Deconversion, Ralph W. Hood and Zhuo Chen
6: Global Expressions
36: A World of Atheism: Global Demographics, Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera
37: Western Europe, Lois Lee
38: North America, Ryan T. Cragun, Joseph H. Hammer, Jesse M. Smith
39: Central and Eastern Europe, Irena Borowik, Branko Anèiæ, Rados³aw Tyra³a
40: Islamic World, Samuli Schielke
41: India, Johannes Quack
42: Japan, Sarah Whylly
7: Atheism and the Arts
43: Literature, Bernard Schweizer
44: Visual Arts, J. Sage Elwell
45: Music, Paul Bertagnolli
46: Film, Nina Power

Edited by Stephen Bullivant, Lecturer in Theology and Ethics, St Mary`s University College, and Michael Ruse, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University

Edited by Stephen Bullivant, Lecturer in Theology and Ethics, St Mary`s University College, and Michael Ruse, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University.

Contributors:
Branko Anèiæ, Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia.
David P. Barash, University of Washington, Seattle.
Jacques Berlinerblau, Georgetown University.
Paul A. Bertagnolli, University of Houston`s Moores School of Music.
Kimberly Blessing, Buffalo State College, New York.
Irena Borowik, Jagiellonian University, Poland.
Callum G Brown, University of Dundee.
Melanie Elyse Brewster, Columbia University.
Stephen Bullivant, St Mary`s University College, Twickenham, UK.
Zhuo Chen, University of Oregon.
Ryan T. Cragun, University of Tampa.
Brian Davies, Fordham University, New York.
Taner Edis, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO.
Mark Edwards, University of Oxford.
J. Sage Elwell, Texas Christian University.
Miguel Farias, Independent Scholar, Oxford.
Jessica Frazier, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, and University of Kent.
A. C. Grayling, New College of the Humanities, London.
Joseph H. Hammer, Iowa State University.
Ralph W. Hood Jr., University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Karen Hwang, Center for Atheist Research, USA.
Ariela Keysar, Trinity College, Connecticut.
Alan Charles Kors, University of Pennsylvania.
Barry A. Kosmin, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
Jonathan Lanman, Queen`s University Belfast.
Stephen Law, Heythrop College, University of London.
Lois Lee, University of Cambridge.
T. J. Mawson, University of Oxford.
David Nash,Oxford Brookes University.
Graham Oppy, Monash University.
Juhem Navarro-Rivera, University of Connecticut.
Frank L. Pasquale, Trinity College, Hartford CT.
Michael L. Peterson, Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.
Charles Pigden, University of Otago.
Nina Power, Roehampton University and the Royal College of Art.
Johannes Quack, Goethe Universität-Frankfurt.
Denis J.-J. Robichaud, University of Notre Dame.
Michael Ruse , Florida State University.
Samuli Schielke, Zentrum Moderner Orient and the Free University of Berlin.
Bernard Schweizer, Long Island University, Brooklyn.
David Sedley, University of Cambridge.
Andrew Skilton, King`s College London.
Jesse M. Smith, University of Colorado at Boulder.
Vic Stenger, University of Colorado and University of Hawaii.
Alison Stone, Lancaster University.
Peter Thompson, University of Sheffield.
Rados³aw Tyra³a, AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, Poland.
Anne Vallely, University of Ottawa.
Dorothea Weltecke, University of Konstanz.
Sarah Whylly, Florida State University.
Erik J. Wielenberg, DePauw University.
Thomas Zenk, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
Phil Zuckerman, Pitzer College in Claremont, California.