Comparative Religion

This book is now firmly established as the standard treatment of its subject. The history of comparative religion is traced in detail from its beginnings in the nineteenth century, in the work of scholars such as Max Muller and anthropologists such as Tylor, Lang, Robertson-Smith and Frazer, through the American psychologists of religion (Starbuck, Leuba, William James), to the period after the First World War, when the evolutionary approach was seriously called into question. Also considered are the relevance of religion to Freud and Jung, the 'phenomenology of religion', the tensions between comparative religion and theology, and the work of such outstanding personalities as Nathan Söderblom and Rudolf Otto. The last two chapters review the main issues raised since the Second World War.

Eric J. Sharpe is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
1. The Antecedents of Comparative Religion
2. ‘He who knows one, knows none’
3. ‘Darwinism makes it possible’
4. Totemism and Magic
5. Some Varieties of Religious Experience
6. The Quest for Academic Recognition
7. Religion, Comparative and Absolute
8. Culture and History
9. Religion and the Unconscious
10. The Phenomenology of Religion
11. Towards a Dialogue of Religions
12. Twenty Years of International Debate, 1955-1970
13. From Comparative Religion to Religious Studies
Bibliography
Index