Content area
Full Text
RR 2005/341 Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd edition) Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Jones Macmillan Reference Detroit, MI 2005 15 vols ISBN 0 02 865733 0 $1,295 Also available as an e-book (ISBN 0 02 865997 X)
Keywords Religion, Encyclopaedias
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120510622616
A new edition of any encyclopedia is an exciting event. Eliade's original edition, published in 1987, received the Hawkins Award for the best publication from all categories by the Association of American Publishers and was the ALA Outstanding Reference Source, the Library Journal Best Reference Source and the 1988 Dartmouth Medal Winner.
Eliade's great work, regarded as a "landmark achievement" (Preface, p. xi) was to be his last: he died in April 1986, having just written his Preface. In this, he describes the Encyclopedia as being "conceived as a system of articles on important ideas, beliefs, rituals, myths, symbols, and persons that have played a role in the universal history of religions from Paleolithic times to the present day". A new edition raises the question: why was revision necessary? After all, it is not yet 20 years since the publication of the first edition, a work which was seven years in the making - and possibly the most important reference work on religions since Hastings (1908-1926). One has only to reflect on the changing structure of world affairs in the interim, on the change in the way of teaching and studying world religions as opposed to comparative religions (at the time of Eliade's work only five religions were considered to be the major world religions, and new religious movements had not yet gained real recognition as important focus for research), on the continuing importance of movements such as Liberation Theology, on the role of Islam on the current world stage, and the evolution of many new religious issues, to realize that the time was right for a revision. This second edition also examines debates between religion and science. Entirely new articles include Bioethics, Chaos Theory, Cybernetics, Ecology and Religion, Genetics and Religion, Healing and Medicine, Medical Ethics and Secular Medicine: these issues are prominent in much current news and so are particularly important debates to include in a new encyclopedia for the twenty-first century.
The Editor-in-Chief of the second edition is Lindsay Jones, Associate Professor at...