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Mircea Eliade

“Everyone who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision.”—Martin E. Marty, The New York Times Book Review
 
 This extraordinary work delves into the subject of religion in the prehistoric and ancient worlds—humankind’s earliest quests for meaning. From Neanderthal burials to the mythology of the Iron Age, to the religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Israel, India, and beyond, it offers both an appreciation of the wide-ranging diversity of religious expression—and a consideration of the fundamental unity of religious phenomena.
 
 “Will arouse the interest of all historians of western religion, since it includes chapters on the religions of Canaan and Israel. However, the book must be read cover to cover if one wants to grasp the significance of its gigantic historical scope.”—Church History

The University of Chicago Press

A History of Religious Ideas

A History of Religious Ideas Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

Willard R. Trask

The conclusion of the three-volume history “rendered with the talent of one who is not only an academic writer but a novelist of considerable distinction” (David J. Levy, Times Higher Education Supplement).

In A History of Religious Ideas. Mircea Eliade examines the movement of Jewish thought out of ancient Eurasia, the Christian transformation of the Mediterranean area and Europe, and the rise and diffusion of Islam from approximately the sixth through the seventeenth centuries. Eliade’s vast knowledge of past and present scholarship provides a synthesis that is unparalleled. In addition to reviewing recent interpretations of the individual traditions, he explores the interactions of the three religions and shows their continuing mutual influence to be subtle but unmistakable.

As in his previous work, Eliade pays particular attention to heresies, folk beliefs, and cults of secret wisdom, such as alchemy and sorcery, and continues the discussion, begun in earlier volumes, of pre-Christian shamanistic practices in northern Europe and the syncretistic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. These subcultures, he maintains, are as important as the better-known orthodoxies to a full understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Acclaim for A History of Religious Ideas

“Everyone who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision.” —Martin E. Marty, The New York Times Book Review

“The volumes would be worth buying for the critical bibliographies alone, but far more than this, they represent the culmination of years of impassioned scholarship.” —David J. Levy, Times Higher Education Supplement

“This multivolume work should be an essential resource for generations to come.” —John Loudon, Parabola

A History of Religious Ideas: Volume 3: From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms

Alf Hiltebeitel

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona