Lucie Valentinová Livres

Offers summary, analysis, and appraisal of many landmark modern efforts to explain the origin and function of religion. Beginning in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, this book considers the Victorian anthropology of E B Tylor and James Frazer; the "reductionist" social science of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx; and more.

In this Very Short Introduction, Barry Stephenson approaches ritual from theoretical and historical perspectives, detailing the efforts to understand the nature and function of ritual, and developing a narrative of ritual's place in social and cultural life.