Here is a blurb from Christopher Hitchens' review of the Susan Jacoby book in the Washington Post:

"In lucid and witty prose, Jacoby has uncovered the hidden history of secular America, and awarded it a large share of credit in every movement for social and political reform. It's nice to read again of the friendship between Walt Whitman and Robert Ingersoll, the greatest anti-religious lecturer of his day. It's sobering to be reminded of how many states practiced overt sectarian discrimination, against Jews, Catholics and Quakers, even after the Founding Fathers had made plain their abhorrence of all such practices. And, of course, it is salutary to be reminded of how much plain villainy and stupidity has been promulgated from the platforms of the godly, many of whom would still like to retard the elementary teaching of science.

If the book has a fault, it is the near-axiomatic identification of the secular cause with the liberal one. Susan Jacoby has what might be called ACLU politics. To read her, you would not know that two of the most prominent intellectual gurus of American conservatism -- Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss -- were both determined nonbelievers. H.L. Mencken, who if not exactly a conservative was certainly not a liberal, had vast contempt for religion but is cited only briefly here for his role in the Scopes trial in Tennessee. Still, when Billy Graham can be asked to give the address at a service for the victims of Sept. 11, and can use the occasion to say that all the dead are now in heaven and would not rejoin us even if they could, it is essential to be reminded of our rationalist tradition -- and also of the fact that our current deadliest foe is conspicuously "faith-based."