Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity

Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology #110

by Roy A. Rappaport

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 cognitive approaches to the study of humankind, he mounts a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, seeing it as co-extensive with the invention of language and hence of culture as we know it. At the same time he assembles the fullest study yet of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions which we take to be religious and has been central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from anthropology, history, philosophy, comparative religion, and elsewhere.

Genres: Anthropology, Religion, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Spirituality, Science

564 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 1999

About the author

Roy A. Rappaport was an American anthropologist known for his contributions to the anthropological study of ritual and to ecological anthropology.

Reviews

[Michael Ortega · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the intellectual equivalent of running a marathon.

Contrary to the back flap description, this book is not one of how science has replaced religion in society, and how they must coexist if we are to continue playing "the existential game." This is a book about ritual. This book's premise is that human beings can only live if they create meaning in a meaningless world subject only to natural laws, and how ritual, in all its aspects, does that. Rappaport expertly outlines his argument, and follows it without deviation. This book is as much philosophical as it is anthropological, sociological, and psychological. A true masterpiece of scholarship detailing how humans beings have created meaning since the dawn of their existence.

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yıllar önce okudum, hala aklımdan çıkmaz.

Kitabın yazarı antropolog kanser olup yalnızca bir senelik ömrü kaldığını öğrenince odasına kapanıp biriktirdiği ne varsa bu kitaba dökmüş. Bazı sosyal bilim kitaplarını okuyunca dünyanın şifresi çözülmüş gibi hissedersiniz ya, bende öyle olmuştu.

Uzun mu uzun, ama gözünüzü karartıp içine dalarsanız düşünce dünyanızda tuğla tuğla bir şeylerin inşa edildiğini hissedersiniz. Ömrünün son senesinde bir çok şey yapabilecekken oturup bu kitabı yazdığın için teşekkürler Roy Rappaport.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very tough for the non-Anthropologist, but utterly fascinating and gratifying.

[Mehmet Kalaycı · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a labyrinth and pretty difficult to read. I found it really hard to get stuck in. I am disappointed because my expectations were high.

[Amber Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If evolution, human and otherwise, is to continue, humanity must think not only about the world, but on behalf of the world of which it has become a very special part [...]. We may recall here one of Heraclitus' modern interpreters (Kleinknecht, 1967 [...]): 'The particular Logos of Man... is part of the general Logos.... which achieves awareness in man.' The Logos, this is to say, can reach consciousness in the human mind and, so far as we know, only in the human mind. This proposes a view of human nature very different from, and I believe nobler than, Homo economicus, that golem of the economists into which life has been breathed not by the persuasiveness of their theory but by its coerciveness, and from the obsessive focus on reproduction attributed to individuals by evolutionary biologists. Humanity in in this view is not only a species among species. It is the part of the world through which the world as a whole can think about itself" (461).

[elisa day · Rating 4 out of 5]

podoba mi się koncepcja Williama Jamesa; może jeszcze do siebie wrócimy

[Riversue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is dense and exacting but enlightening as well. It will warrant another read.

[Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

Podría ser más conciso pero es un libro interesante y lleno de buenas historias

[Emilia Pacurar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rappaport challenges the visions of evolutionary biologists and their obsessive focus on reproductive drives, and favours instead religious rituals when combined in liturgical orders and ecology of dreamtime.

[Toon Pepermans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't (yet?) read the chapters (2 to 12) on ritual

[Tom Isaacs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic book on ritual and religion. Highly recommend.

[Leonard Singer]

This is for a post grad anthropology major; jargon dense; not for general reader.