Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction

By Brian Morris and Brian Morris

Book Overview

Focusing on more recent classical ethnographies, this important study provides a critical introduction to the social anthropology of religion. 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 Neopaganism. 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 approach with sociological analysis.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521617790
• ISBN13: 9780521617796
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A brilliant man

I've lost my copy of this book and am willing to buy it again!Having had the great privilege of taking several courses with Professor Morris, I highly, highly recommend this and any other book he's authored. He is an excellent anthropologist with a deep understanding of the concepts he delves into.

A good introduction

I just finished reading this book as a starting point for a larger research project into the anthropological perspective on religion and found it to be a useful and in-depth introduction. This is not a "for beginners" book and Morris does not talk down to the reader. Morris provides a broad overview of important perspectives on religion from sociologists (Marx, Weber, Durkheim), anthropologists (Turner, Levi-Strauss, Malinowski, Douglas), and even covering, although pretty critically, the psychoanalytic interpretations of Freud and Jung. This is a good, comprehensive introduction that gives a general overview and deals with the criticisms of a flaws in the theories covered.

in-depth theoretical approach with very little bias

This book is a great textbook for any beginning anthropological student (whether or not you're in school) though it is very dense and tough to get through. First, you get a paragraph or so explaining the background of the person whose theories are being presented. Then you get the basic reactions and opinions of the scholar and their theories, followed by an explanation of the theories themselves. In some cases, you also get other scholars' criticisms and then the original's rebuttals. Morris seems to have a pretty liberal approach to the field, and it is rare to see his biases show.