A history of religious ideas : Volume 1, from the Stone Age to the Eleusinian mysteries

Translation of Histoire des croyances et des id�es religieuses.. Translated from the French by Willard R. Trask.

Preface. 1 In the beginning...: Magico-religious behavior of the Paleanthropians. 2 The longest revolution: The discovery of agriculture--mesolithic and neolithic. 3 The Mesopotamian religions. 4 Religious ideas and political crises in Ancient Egypt. 5 Megaliths, temples, ceremonial centers: Occident, Mediterranean, Indus Valley. 6 The religions of the Hittites and the Canaanites. 7 'When Israel was a child'. 8 The religion of the Indo-Europeans. The Vedic gods. 9 India before Guatama Buddha: From the cosmic sacrifice to the supreme identity Atman-Brahman. 10 Zeus and the Greek religion. 11 The Olympians and the heroes. 12 The Eleusinian mysteries. 13 Zarathustra and the Iranian religion. 14 The religion of Israel in the period of the kings and the prophets. 15 Dionysus, or bliss recovered

'...Will arouse the interest of all historians of Western religion, since it includes chapters on the religions of the Canaan and Israel. However, the book must be read cover to cover if one wants to grasp the significance of its gigantic historical scope... Not only has the work unity through Eliade's authorship, but it lays the foundation of the history of religions' edifice of which he has been one of the principal architects.'--Kees W. Bolle, Church History

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