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.brAs 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 ofbrpositive atheism the that there isare no Gods, which is itself but one form of a far deeper, broader, and more significant global phenomenon. pemTheem emOxford Handbook of Atheismem 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. B