Sociology Religion

I miti sono storie che sono state raccontate per centinaia di anni per aiutare a spiegare perché il mondo funziona nel modo in cui funziona. Sono pieni di magia potente, mostri misteriosi e bestie fantastiche, ma anche di eroi coraggiosi in avventure emozionanti che ci insegnano cosa è giusto e cosa è sbagliato. Con tanti personaggi provenienti da diverse culture del mondo, questa enciclopedia della mitologia dalla A alla Z è l'unica che vi farà viaggiare tra potenti dei e dee, guerrieri e re, creature incantate e giganti che scuotono la terra.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy is a philosophical treatise first published in Germany in 1894 after being banned in his home country of Russia. The work is the culmination of 30 years of Tolstoy's thinking, and sets out rules for a new organization of society, based on an interpretation of Christianity which focuses on universal love. In a bold and original way, Tolstoy shows his audiences why violence of any type - even that sanctioned by the state or the church - must be rejected.

The acclaimed author of Culture Warlords investigates the rise of the Christian Right over the last half-century that lays out the grim vision evangelicals are enforcing on our democracy. "An investigative triumph and a warning." —David Corn, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Russian...

Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on morality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and homage to the French writer Jules Renard. Though he warns us that 'this is not my autobiography', the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers.

Religion is at the heart of man’s societies. ‘For a long time,’ Durkheim writes early on in his book, ‘it has been known that the first systems of representations with which men have pictured to themselves the world and themselves were of religious origin.’ Durkheim decided to examine...

Recent polls report that 96-percent of Americans believe in God, and 73-percent believe that angels regularly visit Earth. Why is this? Why, despite the rise of science, technology, and secular education, are people turning to religion in greater numbers than ever before? Why do people believe in God at all?

How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.

High on God gives the first robust and plausible explanation for why megachurches have conquered the churchgoing market of America. Without condescension or exaggeration, the authors show the genius of megachurches: the power of charisma, the design of facilities, the training of leaders, the emotional dynamics, and the strategies that bring people together and lead them to serve and help others. 

Beneath our culture's obsession with wealth and power, status and celebrity, millions of Americans are quietly engaged in a deeply religious struggle to free themselves from petty selfishness and to embrace a life of benevolence and compassion. Drawing on an extensive random survey of 1,200 men and women across the United States, Matthew Lee, Margaret Poloma, and Stephen Post here shed new light on how Americans wake up to the reality of divine love and how that transformative experience expresses itself in concrete acts of benevolence.

De l'émergence d'homo sapiens à nos jours, cette brève histoire de l'humanité est délibérément tournée vers l'intelligence du monde tel qu'il se recompose sous nos yeux. Or, c'est dans les profondeurs les moins conscientes de la vie sociale, celles auxquelles Emmanuel Todd a consacré sa vie de chercheur, que gît l'explication de ce qui nous apparaît aujourd'hui comme le grand désordre du monde.

Gerade in einer Zeit voller Umbrüche und Veränderungen suchen viele Menschen Halt und Orientierung in esoterischen Welterklärungsmodellen. Horoskope verraten, was die eigene Zukunft bringen wird. Der spirituelle Heiler wird zur Leitfigur. Der Esoterikmarkt boomt! Ist der Glaube an unsichtbare Kräfte, die unser Leben in die richtige Bahn lenken sollen, nur eine harmlose Spinnerei? Oder bringt der Esoterik-Trend gefährlichere Risiken mit sich, als es auf den ersten Blick erscheinen mag? Die Bestseller-Autorinnen klären auf.

Acts of Faith is a remarkable account of growing up Muslim in America and coming to believe in religious pluralism, from one of the most prominent faith leaders in the United States. Eboo Patel's story is a hopeful and moving testament to the power and passion of young people - and of the world-changing potential of an interfaith youth movement.

この世に真実を語り残しておきたい――。1992年に統一教会の広報担当になり翌年から1999年まで約7年間にわたって広報部長を務めた大江益夫氏。

Nonostante il crescente pluralismo culturale e religioso, la Chiesa cattolica resta una presenza profondamente radicata nel tessuto sociale del paese e ben visibile anche sulla scena pubblica. Nel dibattito sui valori è spesso terreno di scontro, ma anche punto di riferimento non solo per i credenti. Come si spiega tutto questo? E come sono cambiate, dal dopoguerra a oggi, la Chiesa e la società italiane?

Taking America Back for God points to the phenomenon of "Christian nationalism," the belief that the United States is - and should be - a Christian nation. At its heart, Christian nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone - Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women - recognizes their "proper" place in society. 

The current controversy over teaching evolution in the public schools has grabbed front-page headlines and topped news broadcasts all across the United States. In the Beginning investigates the movement that has ignited debate in state legislatures and at school board meetings. Reaching back to the origins of antievolutionism in the 1920s, and continuing to the promotion of intelligent design today, Michael Lienesch skillfully analyzes one of the most formidable political movements of the 20th century.

Shabana Mir's powerful ethnographic study of women on Washington, D.C., college campuses reveals that being a young female Muslim in post-9/11 America means experiencing double scrutiny—scrutiny from the Muslim community as well as from the dominant non-Muslim community. i>Muslim American Women on Campus illuminates the processes by which a group of ethnically diverse American college women, all identifying as Muslim and all raised in the United States, construct their identities during one of the most formative times in their lives.

Author Stephen Birmingham, who chronicled the rise of Jewish immigrants to extraordinary wealth and success in Our Crowd, now turns his attention to the Irish. Real Lace tells the colorful and fascinating true stories of America’s most renowned Irish-Catholic families. Scions of courageous, driven, and resilient men and women who escaped starvation during Ireland’s terrible potato famine in the mid-19th century, they battled their way out of the slums of Boston and New York, overcoming prejudice and poverty to achieve great wealth, fame, and political power.

Seen as godless by the religious and weak by the atheists, secularism mostly has been misunderstood. In How to Be Secular, Berlinerblau argues for a return to America’s hard-won secular tradition; the best way to protect religious diversity and freedom lies in keeping an eye on the encroachment of each into the other. Berlinerblau passionately defends the virtues of secularism, reminds us what it is and what it can protect, and urges us to mobilize around its cause, which is for all Americans to continue to enjoy freedom for - and from - religion.

As someone who has a foot in both the Western and Arabic worlds, Amal set out to explore the lives of Arab women both in Australia and the Middle East, travelling to the region and interviewing more than 60 women about feminism, intimacy, love, sex and shame, trauma, war, religion and culture. Beyond Veiled Cliches explores the similarities and differences experienced by these women in their daily lives - work, relationships, home and family life, friendships, the communities they live in and more.