Gods in the Global Village: The World′s Religions in Sociological Perspective (Sociology for a New Century Series) - Softcover

Kurtz, Lester R. (Ray)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803990375 ISBN 13: 9780803990371

Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc, 1995

Synopsis

The multicultural interests of today′s diverse student population are reflected in this book which, treats classic issues in the sociology of religion in a variety of religious contexts and considers the global interconnections between beliefs and believers. Kurtz thus helps students understand the interplay between social change and religion. As provocative as it is informative, this book will spark discussion and re-examination of our conventional understandings of the role of religion in the postmodern and modern world.

About this title

About the Author:

Lester R. Kurtz is Professor of Public Sociology at George Mason University, where he teaches the comparative sociology of religion, peace and conflict, social movements, globalization, and both Western and non-Western social theory. He has lectured regularly at the European Peace University and was previously Director of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Prof. Kurtz holds a Master’s in Religion from Yale Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. He is editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Elsevier), coeditor of the two-volume Women, War and Violence (Praeger), Nonviolent Conflict and Civil Resistance (Emerald), Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective (Blackwell), and The Web of Violence: From Interpersonal to Global (University of Illinois Press). He is also the author of numerous books and articles on religion and conflict peace, including The Nuclear Cage: A Sociology of the Arms Race (Prentice Hall) and The Politics of Heresy: The Modernist Crisis in Roman Catholicism (University of California Press), which received the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Distinguished Book Award. He is currently working on books titled Gods and Bombs: Religion and the Rhetoric of Violence and another on Fighting Violence. 

Prof. Kurtz is the past Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association as well as the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association, which awarded him its Robin Williams Distinguished Career Award in 2005. He received the Lester F. Ward Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied and Clinical Sociology in 2014 and has lectured in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and has taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Delhi University in India, and Tunghai University in Taiwan.

Review:

"Kurtz’s book is the only textbook on the sociology of religion to my knowledge that is genuinely interreligious. It transcends the one-sidedness of western / Christian views not only in intent, but in fact... the book introduces the key topics and concerns of the given discipline with clarity and good continuity. It is also quite comprehensive. In one word, it is a textbook that can be used as such without too much of a need for the instructor to reshuffle everything." (Claude A. Perrottet 2001-04-27)

About this edition

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0803990375
• ISBN 13: 9780803990371
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304