"Reconsidering one of our central political dogmas, A. J. Conyers argues that the principle of toleration - as reformulated over the last four centuries - is not the bulwark of social harmony that it appears. In The Long Truce, he shows that toleration, by banishing questions of ultimate meaning from public life, has aided the consolidation of power in the state while debasing our politics and undermining social cohesion."--BOOK JACKET.