In three final essays, Robert N. Bellah grapples with the contradictions of modernity, and seven leading thinkers respond with profound new perspectives on our present predicament.
Robert N. Bellah Book order
Robert N. Bellah was a preeminent American sociologist of religion whose work explored the fundamental question of the meaning of modernity. He deeply investigated the relationship between individualism and community in American society, warning against the dangers of unchecked individualism devoid of social responsibility. His research illuminated the values foundational to democratic institutions and examined the evolution of religion from the Paleolithic era through the Axial Age. Bellah's extensive scholarship offers valuable insights into the dynamics of American society and the profound quest for meaning in modern life.






- 2024
- 2017
Religion in Human Evolution
- 784 pages
- 28 hours of reading
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal
- 2011
Religion in human evolution : from the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
- 746 pages
- 27 hours of reading
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal
- 2003
Imagining Japan
- 254 pages
- 9 hours of reading
A collection of the writings of sociologist Robert N. Bellah, including essays that consider the entire sweep of Japanese history and the character of Japanese society and religion. The book features an introduction that brings together intellectual and institutional dimensions of Japanese history. schovat popis
- 1996
Habits of the Heart
- 376 pages
- 14 hours of reading
Meanwhile, the authors' antidote to the American sickness—a quest for democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditions—has contributed to a vigorous scholarly and popular debate. Attention has been focused on forms of social organization, be it civil society, democratic communitarianism, or associative democracy, that can humanize the market and the administrative state. In their new Introduction the authors relate the argument of their book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.
- 1992
THE GOOD SOCIETY examines how many of our institutions- from the family to the government itself- fell from grace, and offers concrete proposals for revitalizing them.
