I will be reading this soon
Parker, I just took a look at this book. I confined my focus to Wilker's discussions of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Hegel. I've done reading on the so-called secularization thesis (for example, through engagements with, among others, Charles Taylor and Michael Gillespie). Although Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Hegel are, among others, extremely influential in the rise of secular liberal democracy, this is no groundbreaking secret. So I thought that if Wilker could acquit himself well in interpreting these notoriously difficult thinkers, the rest of his book might be interesting. Unfortunately, with regard to these thinkers the author has no idea what he's talking about. He puts forward the standard, blockhead reading of Machiavelli's
Prince, and fails to note its more nuanced rendering, famously done by both Diderot and Rousseau, as a subtle critique of power in the guise of a guide for power (if the goal is to control the populace through coercion, fear-mongering, and rhetorical cunning, it's probably best to keep these strategies
sub rosa). Wilker's treatment of Hobbes is just as bad. He fails to distinguish between law, license, liberty, and right (often conflating 'right' with the former terms -- an inauspicious exegetical sign). And his exposition of Hegel, though brief, exhibits major interpretive problems that would be too tedious to go into. These, albeit limited and localized, problems lead me to the conclusion that the book is less scholarly than polemical; and polemics is the last refuge of a dilettante.
I'm sure you are aware of these much better books:
