Religion in Human Evolution
eBook - PDF

Religion in Human Evolution

From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Religion in Human Evolution

From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

About this book

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year
Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association

Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution.

"Of Bellah's brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly…Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book's subject as well as its substance, and that is 'magisterial.'"
—Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review

"Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the 'reflective judgment' of one of our best thinkers and writers."
—Richard L. Wood, Commonweal

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Yes, you can access Religion in Human Evolution by Robert N. Bellah in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & Ancient History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Preface
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. 1. Religion and Reality
  5. 2. Religion and Evolution
  6. 3. Tribal Religion: The Production of Meaning
  7. 4. From Tribal to Archaic Religion: Meaning and Power
  8. 5. Archaic Religion: God and King
  9. 6. The Axial Age I: Introduction and Ancient Israel
  10. 7. The Axial Age II: Ancient Greece
  11. 8. The Axial Age III: China in the Late First Millennium BCE
  12. 9. The Axial Age IV: Ancient India
  13. 10. Conclusion
  14. Notes
  15. Index