Religions Of The World: The Illustrated Guide To Origins, Beliefs, Traditions & Festivals

by Elizabeth Breuilly, Martin Palmer, Joanne O'Brien

An objective guide to modern-day faiths explores the beliefs, traditions, festivals, and practices of major faiths and covers the main branches and divisions of each religion, all accompanied by photographs and illustrations.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Reference

160 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jacquelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautifully illustrated book brings the world’s contemporary religions to life. The major religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are reviewed in detail. Other faiths, including one of the newest, Baha’i, are also included. The text is accompanied on each page by full color photographs and sidebars with informational tidbits.

[Rafael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, it’s in educational, easy to read book and I learned a considerable amount. However, it had inaccurate information regarding neopaganism, saying neopaganism is synonymous to Wicca. Wicca is the largest neopagan religion, but by no means are they one in the same. Remembering the author descriptions, I presume that the authors have a Christian background–the Christian portion seems to be pretty accurate to all the other books I’ve read. I’m not as familiar with the other religions included in the book as I am with Christianity, Islam, and Neopaganism but I wonder about the accuracy of the those sections, given how the authors and editors all missed such a glaring mistake on Neopaganism. It was a very small section though, so I hope the other, much longer sections were accurate, since they had to have more time spent on them. Still, it was a good introductory read, included helpful pictures, and was a fun summer library read. 4 stars I hope to read more books like this in the future.

[Boo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting

[Hesper Budge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting and useful primer on the basics of world religions!

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview of not just the major religions, but minor ones as well. Goes into enough detail about, not just beliefs but things like the texts they consider their canon, sub-sects of the religion, and such. Quite good.

[Chris Paluszek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light and easy to read; great coverage for most religions. I especially liked how the book included cutaway views of temples/worship sites specific to each major religion, as well as a calendar of their major holidays.