Breaking the Spell: Religion As a Natural Phenomenon - Hardcover

Dennett, Daniel C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067003472X ISBN 13: 9780670034727

Publisher: Viking Pr, 2006

Synopsis

A Tufts University professor explores the nature of faith and how religion shapes everyday life and the future, addressing controversial issues about the relevance and rational qualities of faith while tracing the history of organized religion from its roots in folk beliefs to its key role in modern issues. By the author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. 60,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

"Ambitious . . . an accessible account of what might be called the natural history of religion."
--The New Yorker

"How would a visitor from Mars dispassionately explain human religion? . . . My guess is that the result would be something like this crystal-clear, constantly engaging, and enjoyable new book."
--Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

"Rich and rewarding . . . the main business of the book is to give a scientific account of how religion may have developed among creatures such as us. . . . The product of an extremely bright mind."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"An elegant, sharp-minded essay on the need to study religion in a dispassionate way."
--The Economist

"Penetrating . . . a sharp synthesis of a library of evolutionary, anthropological and psychological research on the origin and spread of religion."
--Scientific American

About the Author:

Daniel C. Dennett is a professor and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. His many books include Darwin's Dangerous Idea and, most recently, Freedom Evolves.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Pr
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 067003472X
• ISBN 13: 9780670034727
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448