"We sometimes hear talk to the effect that Christianity improved the status of women. This is one of the grossest perversions of history that it is possible to make. Women cannot enjoy a tolerable position in society where it is considered of the utmost importance that they should not infringe a very rigid moral code."
― Bertrand Russell, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1929)
Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?(1929) was originally published in the United States and Canada as authorised articles and pamphlets and as a 'protest pamphlet' by E. Haldeman-Julius (July 30, 1889 – July 31, 1951) a Jewish-American socialist writer, atheist intellectual, social reformer and pamphleteer. Haldeman-Julius is best remembered as the head of Haldeman-Julius Publications, the creator of a series of controversial and argumentative pamphlets known as "Little Blue Books," the total sales of which ran into the hundreds of millions of copies. Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?(1929) appeared in many American and Canadian newspapers as a unauthorised pamphlet, but also as an authorised article in The Debunker and The American Parade. In the United Kingdom it first appeared in The Rationalist Annual as an authorised pamphlet for the year 1930, and then most notably as a bi-weekly authorised pamphlet for the whole calendar year of 1931 in The New Statesman― a publication "of the left, for the left" but also as "a political and literary magazine" with "sceptical" politics.
In the early and mid 20th century, pamphlets (both authorised and unauthorised by publishers) were the primary means of mass communication for people interested in political and religious issues (authorised pamphlets appeared in with a publisher's permission/official approval, while unauthorised pamphlets without). Pamphlets rarely looked at both sides of a question; most were avowedly partisan, trying not just to inform but to convince the reader. A pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who produces or distributes pamphlets, especially of a political, religious or philosophical cause. Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?(1929) can be seen as a sequel to Russell’s essay Why I Am Not a Christian (1927) and today both are easily found on the Internet.
