Jonathan Haidt has to be admired for taking on a huge, complex and highly contentious intellectual area of investigation such as this, which is essentially not just an analysis of the social and moral philosophies of politics and religion, but also it's inherent psychological issues [and conflicts] too.
It's therefore not surprising that the book on occasion misfires but on the whole it is a cogent, at times thought provoking work. It is often a very dense,'academic' work though, that is probably more suited to a psych or political science student as it quite comprehensively assesses past and present intellectual thought in those areas. In fact for me, as a relative layman more interest in the broader but still 'intellectual' issues pertaining to what it says on the book’s tin- why good people are divided by Politics and Religion- it only ever really got clearly addressed in the last thirty or so pages, which was a shame.
So a good course read more than anything else. It's also written from an American perspective- which is painfully obvious at times, particularly when Haidt explores and supports [in a way] the libertarian argument for free markets in health care, which is embarrassingly over-simplistic- but he is at pains to give an explanation of certain issues and US-centric viewpoints/terms of reference to those readers outside of the US, which is good. He's also honest enough to admit to being a 'failed' liberal who has moved into more of a 'conservative' appreciation of the socio-political situation in the 21st century west, which is admirable in it's honesty. The book still feels a little inconclusive to my mind though, perhaps reflecting the authors own inner political uncertainties as he tries to resolve his new found RW neoliberalism with his more traditional Leftist past. It's a conflict that would have made for a great read actually, if he'd concentrated more on that as it's probably a process many more academics than would care to admit have actually gone through themselves this past thirty or so years, and real 'answers' to the books over-riding sub-text could have been developed rather than a surfeit of rather dry, specialist chapters, but there you go. A lost opportunity perhaps.
Whatever, worth a look for the good bits scattered through it, just don't expect an overly thought provoking piece of intellectual journalism if you pick it up. Haidt cannot be faulted for his erudition [and nerve], however.