Religions of the World, Second Edition (6 Vol Set)

This masterful six-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts.

Throughout history, religion has been an important force, a motivation for making war and securing peace and a determining factor in the way people live their daily lives. What is religion's place in contemporary society? What do peoples and nations around the globe believe? How do they observe the rituals of their faiths?

Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices is an extraordinary work, bringing together the scholarship of some 225 experts from around the globe. The encyclopedia's six volumes offer entries on every country of the world, with particular emphasis on the larger nations, as well as Indonesia and the Latin American countries that are traditionally given little attention in English-language reference works. Entries include profiles on religion in the world's smallest countries (the Vatican and San Marino), profiles on religion in recently established or disputed countries (Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh), as well as profiles on religion in some of the world's most remote places (Antarctica and Easter Island).

Religions of the World is unique in that it is based in religion "on the ground," tracing the development of each of the 16 major world religious traditions through its institutional expressions in the modern world, its major geographical sites, and its major celebrations. Unlike other works, the encyclopedia also covers the world of religious unbelief as expressed in atheism, humanism, and other traditions.