Roy Abraham Rappaport was an American anthropologist, recognized for his significant contributions to the study of ritual and the development of ecological anthropological theory. His work deeply explored the intricate connections between human societies and their natural environments, examining how rituals and religion function as regulatory mechanisms within these ecosystems. Rappaport’s analytical perspective offers a unique lens through which to understand human adaptation and interaction within complex environmental systems.
This book argues that religion can and must be reconciled with science. It is both a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance and a detailed study of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions which we take to be religious and therefore central in the making of humanity's adaptation.