This is the second in a trilogy of histories of religious decline, each deploying a different methodology—discourse, demography and testimony.

In the first book, The Death of Christian Britain (2001), I wrote using mostly discourse analysis about the dominance of Christian culture in Britain from 1800 down to the 1950s, and how this effectively stalled secularisation in industrial and urban society. This happened through the transformation of Christianity from an ancien régime of the early modern period that demanded parish-based obedience, to a discursive Christianity of the nineteenth century that internalised religious discipline. Accompanying this was a move from demonisation of women's dangers to religiosity, to discourses of adulation to exemplary feminine piety. The short end of the book, which gained more attention in some circles than the earlier larger part, pointed to the 1960s as when popular obedience to these discourses broke down in Britain, instituted by a young female revolt which broke the dominance of Christian culture.

In this second book, I turn to statistics and demography. The basis of the present volume is that discourses, and popular revolt against them, change the way people lead their lives. The major demographic decisions of life in modern society have long been strongly influenced by women, but in the sixties in many nations came effective female control over those major demographic decisions.