RELIGION AND ANTHROPOLOGY A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION pdf

Religion And Anthropology A Critical Introduction by Brian Morris

RELIGION AND ANTHROPOLOGY A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION

This important study provides a critical introduction to the social anthropology of religion, focusing on more recent classical ethnographies.

Comprehensive, free of scholastic jargon, engaging, and comparative in approach, it covers all the major religious traditions that have been studied concretely by anthropologists – Shamanism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and its relation to African and Melanesian religions, and contemporary Neo-Paganism.

Eschewing a thematic approach and treating religion as a social institution and not simply as an ideology or symbolic system, the book follows the dual heritage of social anthropology in combining an interpretative understanding and sociological analysis.

The book will appeal to all students of anthropology, whether established scholars or initiates to the discipline, as well as to students of the social sciences and religious studies, and to all those interested in comparative religion.

Brian Morris is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, at the University of London.

 His many publications include Chewa Medical Botany (1996), Animals and Ancestors (2000), Kropotkin: The Politics of Community (2004), bisects and Human Life (2004), and Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text (Cambridge, 1987).