I'm beginning to wonder if any of the people commenting on Rodney Stark's new book - other than the exceedingly hostile Alan Wolfe - have ever read any of Stark's works. Although I acquired a copy of _The Victory of Reason_ last week, I haven't yet had time to begin reading it. However, I have read the two Stark books that preceded it - _One True God_ and _For the Glory of God_ - and found them highly intelligent works. Indeed, what I read in those books leads me to discount much of what Wolfe has to say about _The Victory of Reason_, at least until I've had a chance to read it myself. Allow me to provide a few examples that indicate to me that Wolfe may be seriously misunderstanding (or misrepresenting?) what Stark has to say. Wolfe is astounded that Stark argues that Latin America never became "a Catholic continent." Sounds crazy, eh? Well, Stark also argues, in _One True God_, that most of "Protestant" northern Europe was never really Christian at all. And he makes a very good case for his argument. We cannot (or should not, at least) assume that just because the leaders of an area accept (often for political reasons)a religion and proclaim it the religion of the realm, the ordinary people really believe in the official God or in the particular doctrines being taught. Only when ordinary people come to faith and commit to the religion, rather than using the newly imposed language as a cover for their previous religious views, can we say that the people were converted. Stark makes a good case that neither northern Europe nor most of Latin America ever fit the bill. He may be wrong, but the argument isn't stupid. Regarding the Christian assault on slavery, Wolfe dispatches Stark by noting that Martin Luther and the Catholic Church lacked tolerance. Well now, that's a clincher. In _For the Glory of God_ Stark devotes a chapter of about 100 pages to detailing the European-led rejection of slavery (within Europe) and the Christian-led efforts to stop the slave trade, then to abolish slavery. He doesn't pull any punches about the evils of slavery, and he provides a great many references to his sources. He also documents what is widely known among scholars in this area, viz. that Muslims never took up the anti-slave mantle but rather had it imposed upon them. That may not be P.C., but it is documented history. Wolfe charges Stark with "triumphalism" and with anti-Semitism. Hmm. That must be why Stark examines so carefully the Christian persecution of Jews in his previous book. And his defense of the Inquisition, that bastion of unreason? Well, the Spanish and Italian Inquisitions almost totally prevented the witch burnings that took place elsewhere, and the whole "persecution of Galileo" is a well-known myth having more to do with Galileo's politics than with any desire of the Catholic Church to persecute him. (By the way, I'm not Roman Catholic, so I'm not defending my personal position here.) I have little doubt that, as a mono-causal explanation of European ascendance, Stark's book will be found wanting in some, possibly important, ways. But Wolfe's impassioned attack on it appears to me to be an effort to persuade people not to read it. My position is, Read it for yourself; make up your own mind. Neil Skaggs