Religions in Global Society

Saying the word "religion" in today's world evokes a bewildering and often contradictory variety of images and attitudes. From the Dalai Lama to Falun Gong, from mosque to temple, "religion" covers a multitude of practices, worldviews and cosmologies. This book, by a distinguished sociologist of religion, offers a way of understanding religion in contemporary global society, by analyzing it as a dimension of the historical process of globalization. Written with exceptional clarity, it introduces theories of globalization, show how they can be applied to world religions, and illustrates the discussion with examples ranging from Islam and Hinduism to African traditional religions and new age spirituality.

Peter Beyer is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada.