Best History of Ethnic & Tribal Religions

Black Elk Speaks , the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. (N. Scott Momaday 2013-10-25). “An American classic.”— Western Historical Quarterly.

The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya is the first-ever English-language dictionary of Mesoamerican mythology and religion. Mary Ellen Miller is the Vincent Scully Professor of the History of Art at Yale University.

Black Elk Speaks , the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. ( Western Historical Quarterly 2013-10-25). “If any great religious classic has emerged in [the twentieth] century or on this continent, it must certainly be judged in the company of Black Elk Speaks .”—from Vine Deloria Jr.’s foreword.

Civilization was born eight thousand years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. “The lively mixture of topicality, politics, history, myth and culture in this anecdote is typical of Babylon at its best.” ― The Independent (UK).

In this astonishing work of scholarship that reads like an edge-of-your-seat adventure thriller, acclaimed historian Buddy Levy records the last days of the Aztec empire and the two men at the center of an epic clash of cultures perhaps unequaled to this day. "For sheer drama, no age compares to the age of exploration, no explorers compare to the conquistadors and no conquistador compares to Hernan Cortes. In Buddy Levy’s finely wrought and definitive Conquistador , the worlds of Cortes and Montezuma collide and come to life. "—Neal Bascomb, author of Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin "A century before the Mayflower, a single man settled the destiny of the Americas far more momentously than the Puritans ever could.... Conquistador offers a fascinating account of the first and most decisive of those encounters: the one between the impetuous Spanish adventurer Cortés and Montezuma, the ill-starred emperor of the Aztecs.... [An] almost unbelievable story of missionary zeal, greed, cruelty and courage.

Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood—both already celebrated for their adventures in Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece, and Rome—sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. In the tradition of Lost City of Z and In the Kingdom of Ice , former San Francisco Chronicle journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist William Carlsen reveals the remarkable story of the discovery of the ancient Maya. Enduring disease, war, and the torments of nature and terrain, Stephens and Catherwood meticulously uncovered and documented the remains of an astonishing civilization that had flourished in the Americas at the same time as classic Greece and Rome—and had been its rival in art, architecture, and power. Based on Carlsen’s rigorous research and his own 1,500-mile journey throughout the Yucatan and Central America, Jungle of Stone is equally a thrilling adventure narrative and a revelatory work of history that corrects our understanding of Stephens, Catherwood, and the Maya themselves. “Carlsen’s cogent and well-written dual biography successfully illuminates the fascinating tale of these intrepid pioneers of a lost civilization. ... Ably researching [Stephens and Catherwood] and affectingly describing their friendship, Carlsen makes an exemplary contribution to the lost-cities genre.” (Booklist (starred review) ). “Carlsen’s masterful chronicle of [Stephens and Catherwood’s] explorations is a welcome excursion to a fascinating story set in the golden age of exploration.” (The Missourian).

This well-researched examination of human moral impulses will appeal to liberals and conservatives alike following the 2016 presidential campaign and election. Beautifully written, Haidt’s book shines a new and creative light on moral psychology and presents a provocative message.”. — Science “A remarkable and original synthesis of social psychology, political analysis, and moral reasoning.”. —Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University. The principal posture in which one envisions him is that of a scrappy, voluble, discerning patriot standing between the warring factions in American politics urging each to see the other’s viewpoint, to stop demonizing, bashing, clobbering. “Jonathan Haidt is one of smartest and most creative psychologists alive, and his newest book, The Righteous Mind is a tour de force—a brave, brilliant and eloquent exploration of the most important issues of our time. This is the book that everyone is going to be talking about.”. —Paul Bloom, Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology, Yale University. This elegantly written book has far-reaching implications for anyone interested in anthropology, politics, religion, or the many controversies that divide modern societies. If you want to know why you hold your moral beliefs and why many people disagree with you, read this book..”. —Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University, Author of Zero Degrees of Empathy and The Science of Evil. “Jonathan Haidt’s absorbing The Righteous Mind should come with a warning label: ‘contents highly addictive.’ Written in a breezy and accessible style but informed by an impressively wide range of cutting-edge research in the social sciences, evolutionary biology and psychology, The Righteous Mind is about as interesting a book as you’ll pick up this year.”. — The Globe and Mail. “What makes [ The Righteous Mind ] so compelling is the fluid combination of erudition and entertainment, and the author’s obvious pleasure in challenging conventional wisdom. [Haidt’s] core point is simple and well-made: our morality, much of it wired into brains from birth, at the same time binds us together and blinds us to different configurations of morality.”. — The Guardian (London). Haidt’s brilliant synthesis shows that Christians have nothing to fear and much to gain from the evolutionary paradigm.”. —Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution. “The Righteous Mind is an intellectual tour de force that brings Darwinian theorizing to the practical realm of everyday politics. “As a fellow who listens to heated political debate daily, I was fascinated, enlightened, and even amused by Haidt’s brilliant insights. This penetrating yet accessible book will help readers understand the righteous minds that inhabit politics.”. —Larry Sabato, University of Virginia, author of A More Perfect Constitution. “A profound discussion of the diverse psychological roots of morality and their role in producing political conflicts.

Millions of readers have thrilled by bestselling authors Bill O’Reilly and historian Martin Dugard's Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln , page-turning works of nonfiction that have changed the way we read history. The iconic anchor of The O'Reilly Factor led the program to the status of the highest rated cable news broadcast in the nation for sixteen consecutive years. He holds a history degree from Marist College, a masters degree in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University, and another masters degree from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Millions of readers have thrilled by bestselling authors Bill O’Reilly and historian Martin Dugard's Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln , page-turning works of nonfiction that have changed the way we read history. The iconic anchor of The O'Reilly Factor led the program to the status of the highest rated cable news broadcast in the nation for sixteen consecutive years. He holds a history degree from Marist College, a masters degree in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University, and another masters degree from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Fully revised with forty thousand new words that take the reader up to present-day India, John Keay’s India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to the events in the region today. Yet, observes historian John Keay , most historical work on India concentrates on the period after the arrival of Europeans, with predictable biases, distortions, and misapprehensions. Keay traces the growth of subsequent states and kingdoms throughout antiquity and the medieval period, suggesting that the lack of unified government made the job of the European conquerors somewhat easier--but by no means inevitable.

But this book is not about the success stories. " Bad Rabbi is a masterful set of finely-tuned scholarship and critical zingers that brings detailed archival history of 'downwardly mobile' nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jews alive through vivid, erudite, and spit-take funny storytelling. "Don't feel guilty chuckling your way through Bad Rabbi as you read about the crazy deeds and commonplace misfortunes of marginal Jews from a century ago. ". "In the staid world of academic Yiddishists, Eddy Portnoy is a live wire, a funny guy, a mischief-maker, what they used to call in the Catskills, a tummler ... Bad Rabbi is a succession of outlandish misadventures, a wild panorama populated by an astonishing array of characters... Yiddish journalists were showboats, garnishing tabloid sensationalism with literary jokes and religious references. "Eddy Portnoy's Bad Rabbi is an extraordinary thing: a gateway to the lost world of Jewish street life in pre-World War II New York and Warsaw. The Yiddish newspapers Portnoy mines were free from piety and light on decorum; instead they present a vast, roiling canvas of human behavior in all its extremes, from comedy to horror, with fiercely unbuttoned characters declaiming eloquently as stoopside choruses annotated their rants.

Drawn directly from 24 Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese sources, and retold by Thich Nhat Hanh in his inimitably beautiful style, this book traces the Buddha’s life slowly and gently over the course of 80 years, partly through the eyes of Svasti, the buffalo boy, and partly through the yes of the Buddha himself. The simple style is engaging, leading the reader through events in the Buddha's life while taking care to present and reinforce the central meaning and tone of his teaching.

For the first time in 3,300 years, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day: The Papyrus of Ani is showcased in its entirety in seventy-four magnificent color pages. Dr. Ogden Goelet, Jr. is a Clinical Professor of Egyptian Language and Culture in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University.

The World’s Religions, by beloved author and pioneering professor Huston Smith ( Tales of Wonder ), is the definitive classic for introducing the essential elements and teachings of the world's predominant faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as regional native traditions. Huston Smith's masterpiece explores the essential elements and teachings of the world's predominant faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the native traditions of Australia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.