Featuring comprehensive updates and additions, the second edition of Understanding Theories of Religion explores the development of major theories of religion through the works of classic and contemporary figures. A new edition of this introductory text exploring the core methods and theorists in religion, spanning the sixteenth-century through to the latest theoretical trends Features an entirely new section covering religion and postmodernism; race, sex, and gender; and religion and postcolonialism Examines the development of religious theories through the work of classic and contemporary figures from the history of anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and theology Reveals how the study of religion evolved in response to great cultural conflicts and major historical events Student-friendly features include chapter introductions and summaries, biographical vignettes, a timeline, a glossary, and many other learning aids

Featuring comprehensive updates and additions, the secondedition of Understanding Theories of Religion explores thedevelopment of major theories of religion through the works ofclassic and contemporary figures.* A new edition of this introductory text exploringthe core methods and theorists in religion, spanning thesixteenth-century through to the latest theoretical trends* Features an entirely new section covering religion andpostmodernism; race, sex, and gender; and religion andpostcolonialism* Examines the development of religious theories throughthe work of classic and contemporary figures from the history ofanthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and theology* Reveals how the study of religion evolved in responseto great cultural conflicts and major historical events* Student-friendly features include chapterintroductions and summaries, biographical vignettes, a timeline, aglossary, and many other learning aids

Preface to the Second Edition: Understanding, Instead of Just Thinking vii1 Introduction: Understanding Theories of Religion is Better than Just Being Critical 1Part I The Prehistory of the Study of Religion: Responses to an Expanding World 72 Jean Bodin and Herbert of Cherbury: True Religion, Essential Religion, and Natural Religion 93 Understanding Religion Also Began with Trying to Understand the Bible 19Part II Classic Nineteenth-Century Theorists of the Study of Religion: The Quest for the Origins of Religion in History 314 Max Müller, the Comparative Study of Religion, and the Search for Other Bibles in India 335 The Shock of the "Savage": Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution, and Spirits 456 The Religion of the Bible Evolves: William Robertson Smith 557 Setting the Eternal Templates of Salvation: James Frazer 65Part III Classic Twentieth-Century Theorists of the Study of Religion: Defending the Inner Sanctum of Religious Experience or Storming It 758 Understanding How to Understand Religion: "Phenomenology of Religion" 779 How Religious Experience Created Capitalism: Max Weber 9310 Tales from the Underground: Freud and the Psychoanalytic Origins of Religion 10611 Bronislaw Malinowski and the "Sublime Folly" of Religion 11812 Seeing God with the Social Eye: Durkheim's Religious Sociology 12913 Mircea Eliade: Turning Back the "Worm of Doubt" 142Part IV Liberation and Post-Modernism: Race, Gender, Post-Colonialism, the Discourse on Power 15514 From Modernism to Post-Modernism: Mostly Michel Foucault 15715 Theorizing Religion with Race in Mind: Prophecy or Curiosity? 17116 Sex/Gender and Women: Feminists Theorizing Religion 18917 Another "Otherness": Post-Colonial Theories of Religion 21618 Conclusion: Being "Smart" about Bringing "Religion" Back In 241Index 254