The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History (Bollingen Series (General))

Eliade, Mircea

ISBN 10: 0691123500 / ISBN 13: 9780691123509

Published by Princeton University Press, 2005

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History (Bollingen Series (General))
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691123500
• ISBN 13: 9780691123509
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text.

About the Author

Born in Bucharest in 1907, Mircea Eliade was for many years Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. He is the author of, among other books, Shamanism, Images and Symbols, and Yoga (all Princeton). Jonathan Z. Smith is Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor of the Humanities at the University of Chicago and the author of Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown and, most recently, Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion.