Scholars of Vedic religion have long recognized the centrality of ritual categories to Indian thought. There have been few successful a ttempts, however, to bring the same systematic rigor of Vedic Scholarship to bear on later "Hindu" ritual. Excavating the deep history of a prominent ritual category in "classical" Hindu texts, Geslani traces the emergence of a class of rituals...(展开全部)

Roy Rappaport argues that religion is central to the continuing evolution of life, although it has been been displaced from its original position of intellectual authority by the rise of modern science. His book, which could be construed as in some degree religious as well as about religion, insists that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and ...(展开全部)

The topic of religious and ritual change, including conversion from one modality of practices to another, has emerged in recent years as a prime focus of scholarly attention in anthropology and related disciplines, such as history, sociology, political science and religious studies. Conversion to Christianity is one focus that has developed within this broad and dynamic field ...(展开全部)

Examining early Chinese ritual discourse during the Warring States and early Western Han Periods, this book reveals how performance became a fundamental feature of ritual and politics in early China. Following the view that Ruists (Confucians) conceived ritual as primarily a dramaturgical matter, this book explores the influence of these performer/spectator relationships on ear...(展开全部)

In 142 CE, the divine Lord Lao descended to Mount Cranecall (Sichuan province) to establish a new covenant with humanity through a man named Zhang Ling, the first Celestial Master. Facing an impending apocalypse caused by centuries of sin, Zhang and his descendants forged a communal faith centering on a universal priesthood, strict codes of conduct, and healing through the conf...(展开全部)

To examine the long-run origins of democracy and dictatorship, Brian Downing focuses on the importance of medieval political configurations and of military modernization in the early modern period. He maintains that in late medieval times an array of constitutional arrangements distinguished Western Europe from other parts of the world and predisposed it toward liberal democrac...(展开全部)

布莱恩·唐宁(Brain M .Downing)早年毕业于哈佛大学政治学系，师从著名历史比较研究学者斯考切波（Theda Sckopol）、鲁道夫（Lloyd Rudolph）和国际关系学者米尔斯海默（John Mearsheimer）。他的主要著作《军事革命与政治变革》考察了欧洲中世纪末期军事技术变革与民主和宪政制度起源之间的关系，获得了包括巴林顿·摩尔（Barrington Moore）在内的著名学者的好评，并夺得了美国政治学年会加布里埃尔·阿尔蒙德（Gabriel Almond）大奖。此后唐宁退出了学术圈，成为一名独立评论人，在美国多种主要媒体均有发言。

Max Weber's ideas have had enormous influence in theoretical sociology. But what he wrote about Asia has more often been cited by specialists to illustrate his errors rather than to derive inspiration. This collection of essays both engages with Max Weber's work, and attempts to use his general approach, combined with detailed ethnography from Nepal and Japan, to attack critica...(展开全部)

Ritual manuals are among the most common and most personal forms of Buddhist literature. Since at least the late fifth century, individual practitioners—including monks, nuns, teachers, disciples, and laypeople—have kept texts describing how to perform the daily rites. These manuals represent an intimate counterpart to the canonical sutras and the tantras, speaking to the lived...(展开全部)

The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China presents a major new approach in research on the formation of the Qing empire (1636–1912) in early modern China. Focusing on the symbolic practices that structured domination and legitimized authority, the book challenges traditional understandings of state-formation, and argues that in addition to war making and institution build...(展开全部)