Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) [Paperback]

Roy A. Rappaport (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521296900 | ISBN-13: 978-0521296908 | Publication Date: March 28, 1999 | Edition: 1

This book argues that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and cognitive approaches, it is a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, and its inextricable interdependence with language. It is also a detailed study of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions that we take to be religious and therefore central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from a range of disciplines.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Roy Rappaport's book is an admirable blend of rich information and analytical power. It is a committed and challenging reflection on the importance of religion and the constructive power of rituals for a postmodern world, seen in the light of its pre-modern and modern history. A courageous work in a period of overspecialized scholarship, I have never read such a comprehensive and penetrating treatise on rituals." Hans Kung, Universitat Tubingen

"Once in a great while there appears a book that alters the dimensions of the intellectual field to which it speaks. This is such a book. In it, the author marshalls insights drawn from ethnography and ecology, the cybernetics of communication, comparative religion and semiotics to establish the centrality of ritual for what it means to be human. In clear and elegant prose, Roy Rappaport calls into question many of the ways we think about the world. The result is an intellectual adventure of the first magnitude." Eric Wolf

"This...is one of the most comprehensive anthropological studies of religion ever published. But what truly sets it apart from other studies is that it is not only 'about' religion but is also a profoundly religious book." Choice

"A profound and brilliant work that combines sustained deductive reasoning with a global, holistic vision. It explores the nature of language, truth, and experience, its consequences for moral and social order, and its significance for understanding the place of humanity in nature. As a fine grained, incisive, yet epistemologically complex and generous analysis, this is quite simply the most original and important social scientific investigation into the foundations of religion since Durkheim." Michael Lambek, University of Toronto

"Ritual and the Making of [Humanity] is truly a magisterial work, breathtaking in scope, breadth, depth, and theoretical power... Rappaport's is an urgent, committed work." Sarah Caldwell, Religious Studies Review

"...essential...in the developing conversation about how human beings can deeply know their involvement in the biosphere and in each other and how they can act together to preserve it." Whole Earth

"The text offers a cross-cultural manual of effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from anthropology, history, philosophy, and comparative religion." Journal of Psychology & Christianity

"...an exciting book emerging at the very end of the life of an eminent social scientist and anthropologist of religion. No review can do justice to the riches and erudition of this book." Edith Turner, Journal of Anthropological Research

"The theologian and the liturgist, as well as the anthropologist, should have this book at hand, for any discussion of ritual in the future will have to deal with this comprehensive and provocative study of how ritual and religion shape human beings." Theological Studies

""Ritual and the Making of [Humanity] , Roy Rappaport convincingly argues that religion and ritual have played a central role in the development of the human species...this book's greatest strength is its interdisciplinary breadth and ambitious design, which should give it wide appeal and influence among anthropologists, historians of religion, and any reader willing to be challenged by an intellectually provocative study of religion and ritual." Jrnl of Religion

Book Description

This book argues that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and cognitive approaches, it is a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, and its inextricable interdependence with language. It is also a detailed study of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions which we take to be religious and therefore central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from a range of disciplines.

Product Details

• Paperback: 562 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (March 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521296900
• ISBN-13: 978-0521296908
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #383,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Will influence scholars for many years to come", October 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) (Paperback)

"Roy A. Rappaport was one of the most distinguished anthropologists of his generation. What sets this book apart from other anthropoplogical studies of religion is that it is not only "about" religion, but is also a profoundly religious book. The author makes a strong case for what he sees as religion's significance in human evolution and argues passsionately for the reconciliation of religion and science. He suggests that human survival may depend on developing a postmodern science that is thoroughly grounded in ecology. Examining evidence from fields as diverse as history, cybernetics, communication theory, semiotics, ethnography, ecology, philosphy, and comparative religions, Rappaport comes to the conclusion that riual should be the main focus of religious studies because "ritual is the ground where all religion is made." The book provides the fullest analysis of ritual since Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912). It is carefully argued; well reasoned, and precise, and is likely to influence scholars for many years to come. Extensive documentation. Solid bibliography. Highly recommended." Stephen D. Glazier, Professor of Anthropology, University of Nebraska

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Astonishing Intellectual Achievement, August 4, 2004

By 

James Kielland (Montezuma, Costa Rica) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) (Hardcover)

As the centuries long battle between religion and science unfolded in the 19th century, science became the clear winner in terms of intellectual prestige. But that fight, while leaving science victorious in the realm of the intellect also left lingering prejudices within science towards religion. As science moved forward offering us ever deeper knowledge of the cosmos, life, and ourselves, science also began to ignore its former nemesis. Despite the awesome significance of religion in human life and history, the social sciences have relatively little to offer on the role of religion in human evolution and the reasons for or mechanisms whereby religions tradition are transmitted from one generation to the next.

It's not uncommon to meet fantastically educated people, with strong knowledge in the physical or social sciences, who not only know nothing of religion but seem to insist that there's nothing worth knowing. For these people, human religious behavior is looked at as some kind of quirk or anomaly, an embarrassing hold-over from a dark past that we'd all just hopefully outgrow. Such people tend to comfort themselves with the old baseless superstition that religion is the "opiate of the masses." But considering the importance of religion in human history and the astonishing grip religious belief holds over the lives of billions of human beings, it's probably safe to assert that disciplines such as psychology and sociology are fundamentally grasping in the dark if they are unable or unwilling to seriously come to terms with role of religion in the lives of individuals and societies.

Rappaport's book provides the most thorough and penetrating look into human religion that I've ever come across. Combining insights from an astonishingly wide array of fields, Rappaport demonstrates the role that religion has played in human evolution and how and why humans evolved to become religious beings. In the end, he makes a fascinating case for the role of religion in human life and why our survival as a species depends on understanding that role.

This is unquestionably the most intellectually rigorous and powerful book I've seen on anthropology and human evolution. As the review below by an anthropology student shows, this book is not easy reading and certainly isn't recommended for people with little background in these topics. However, dedicated students of the social sciences who have an interest in these issues should be able to make it through with some patience. Those who do will be richly rewarded. I've read some fascinating and brilliant works on these topics, but nothing I've come across approaches the raw analytic and synthetic power of Rappaport. He truly was one of the greatest anthropologists and arguably one of the greatest social scientists that the United States has ever produced.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascination, Agree or Not!, July 19, 2007

By 

Gregory Nixon (Prince George, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) (Paperback)

The late Roy Rappaport should be more famous than he is now. He's one of the scientific mystics of the ecopsychology movement and so it should be. One thing lacking is the next step: If the sacred, ritual, shamanism, language, and symbolic culture all appeared at the same moment, we need more speculation on exactly when this moment was, what brought it on, and why it occurred. The suggestion verges on the mystical -- and in such a brilliant, erudite, well-reasoned (if challenging) book, the mystical would certainly have been earned. It is a tour de force of intellectual engagement if you have the intellectual tools to engage it.