Ray Argyle is the author of eleven books, including biographies of French President Charles de Gaulle and American Ragtime composer Scott Joplin. A journalist and media consultant, his articles have appeared in such magazines as Reader's Digest, France Today, and World War II History. He is based in Kingston, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Main Dramatis Personae

Chronology

Foreword by Robert Forder

Introduction

Part I-Reform and Rebellion

¿1.¿An Inge Street Boy and the Capitalist Who Preached Socialism

¿2.¿The Roar of the Blast Furnace in a Time of Turmoil

¿3.¿In Which It Is Hard to Change the Mind of a Midlands Man

¿4.¿Is It Possible to Be Rational About Religion?

Part II-Dare to Be an Atheist

¿5.¿An Honest Answer to a Difficult Question

¿6.¿The Lure of London and a Trial by Tyranny

¿7.¿How a Prisoner Became the Watchmaker's Nemesis

¿8.¿The Light of Freedom Shines on a Liberated Blasphemer

Part III-Discovering Secularism

¿9.¿Fleet Street Ink and the Fight for an Unstamped Press

10.¿Throwing Bombs in the "Springtime of the Peoples"

11.¿How the Idea of Secularism Came Into Being

Part IV-A Respectable

12.¿Finding Yourself in Company of the Famous

13.¿She Heard No Evil, but Saw Much

14.¿A Funeral in Wales and Rallying the Faithless

15.¿The High Cost of a Clash of Ideas

16.¿The ­Co-operative Man Makes a Change of Direction

Part V-Goals Gained

17.¿Charles Bradlaugh, Birth Control and Mrs. Besant

18.¿Going Blind, but Keeping the Vision of a Secular State

19.¿An Innocent in America Finds the Ties That Bind

20.¿"The Queen Is Dead, Long Live the King!"

21.¿A Life, a Legend, a Legacy

Epilogue: In Our Time: Secularism Under Siege

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index