Автор: Lindsay Jones
Название: Encyclopedia of Religion: 15 Volume Set, 2nd Edition
Издательство: Macmillan Reference USA
Год: 2004
ISBN: 0028657330
Язык: English
Формат: pdf
Размер: 166,5 mb
Страниц: 11000

The Encyclopedia of Religion, first published in 1987, sought "to introduce educated, nonspecialist readers to important ideas, practices, and persons in the religious experience of humankind from the Paleolithic past to our day." It had been some 65 years since the last volume of a similar effort, the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (New York: Scribner, 1911-22), was published, prompting two reviewers to prophesy that it was "extremely unlikely another encyclopedia of religion on this scale [would] appear in English for at least another generation." Just about a generation has passed, and the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion has appeared, right on schedule.

The second edition contains "well over five hundred new topics, nearly one thousand completely new articles, and 1.5 million more words than the original." In his preface, the editor provides an excellent service to readers by clearly distinguishing the differences in content between the two editions. All 2,750 entries from the first edition were examined for revision, 1,800 of them remaining essentially unchanged. While entries in both editions are signed, the name of the scholar is followed by the date 1987 in the new edition, thereby indicating the article is reprinted with few or no changes. When entries were updated for the second edition, either by the original author or by another scholar, a single name will be followed by two dates (1987 and 2005) or two names will be listed, each followed by one of the two years. The editors considered some articles from the first edition worthy of inclusion in the second but no longer state-of-the-art (e.g., Mysticism, Rites of passage, Sexuality). Here, the entry is reprinted with the title qualified by "First Edition" and is then followed by a completely new article with the same title but the qualifier "Further Considerations." Most, if not all, entries conclude with supplemental bibliographies, often updated even if the entry itself was not. When they have been updated, the new citations follow the original bibliography under the heading "New Sources."

Volume 15 contains, in addition to the index, a "Synoptic Outline of Contents" which sorts entry headings under topics related to either individual religions and religious traditions or religious studies. Also in this volume is an appendix with 21 entries that could not be included in the main A-Z portion of the encyclopedia "due to time constraints."

Academic specialists may uncover some factual errors in this second edition and may well quibble with the presentation of material by their colleagues. But as reviewers of the first edition remarked-an assessment equally true today-the Encyclopedia of Religion "will indeed provide a generation of users with valuable summaries and analyses of the best of current scholarship in the field of religion." If the encyclopedia has any major flaw, it is the choice of color for the binding. While the gold lettering against the white binding is handsome indeed, the volumes will soon be soiled should the set receive anything close to the use it so richly deserves. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.