Synopsis
With its original publication in 1935, this classic work established the theoretical and practical foundations for a global sociology of religion. Delineating the transition from the grand theories of religion that characterized the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the narrower, fieldwork-based focus that followed, Roger Bastide's comprehensive survey of religion was instrumental in turning the study of religion toward ethnography; as such, this book, an early attempt to understand the broad social contexts of religion, inaugurated a golden era of religious anthropology.
A pioneer, along with Claude Lévi-Strauss, of structural anthropology, Bastide combines foundational elements of that nascent approach with ethnopsychiatry. Social Origins of Religion carries out the tasks of defining religion, giving the notions of rites and representation radically new roles in social science, and studying religions as systems. Bastide brings rigor to the field by analyzing theories of the sacred, the origin of religion, social elements of religious life, religious systems, and religious change. He casts doubt on some of the more fanciful and immoderate contributions in the field, opting instead for a meticulously descriptive approach that nevertheless does not discount the value of spiritual aspects of religion.
Of major importance in its time and in our own, Social Origins of Religion goes beyond historical interest to revive and extend our thinking about religion in a comparative panhuman framework-a framework of critical pertinence in a world reshaped by the forces of globalism and fundamentalism.
Roger Bastide (1898-1974) was professor at the University of São Paulo and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, received the Légion d'honneur, and was awarded a chair at the Sorbonne. Bastide wrote more than eight hundred articles and thirty books, many of them still in print.
Mary Baker is a professional translator whose previous translations include The Existence of the External World by Jean-René Vernes (2001) and Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology by Marcel Hénaff (Minnesota, 1998).
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About the Author
At the time of his death in 1974, Roger Bastide was a professor in the Facult de Lettres et Sciences Humaines at the Sorbonne. Of a rich scholarly legacy of some thirty books and well over three hundred articles, his acknowledged masterwork is The African Religions of Brazil.
James L. Peacock is Kenan Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and President of the American Anthropological Association. His publications include Rites of Modernization (1968), The Human Condition (1970), Indonesia: Anthropological Perspectives (1973), Consciousness and Change (1975), Muslim Puritans (1978) and Pilgrims of Paradox (1989). He was President of the American Anthropological Association 1993 5, and was initiated into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.
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Social Origins Of Religion
Published by
University of Minnesota Press, 2003
ISBN 10: 0816632480
ISBN 13: 9780816632480
Used
Hardcover
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Book has light shelving wear to the edges and corners, with light rubbing to the covers. Aside from the items listed this is a very good copy that remains well-bound with bright pages that are crisp and unmarked. Seller Inventory # 942963