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Living with the Gods: On Beliefs and Peoples

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Living with the Gods: On Beliefs and Peoples

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Overview

In the same format as his best-selling books A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany: Memories of a Nation—the acclaimed art historian now gives us a magnificent new book that explores the relationship between faith and society.

Until fairly recently, religion as a major influence on the nature of individual societies around the world seemed to be on the wane. Now, far from being marginalized, the relationship between faith and society has moved to the center of politics and global conversation. Neil MacGregor's new book traces the ways in which different societies have understood and articulated their places in the cosmic scheme. It examines mankind's beliefs not from the perspective of institutional religions but according to how shared narratives have shaped societies—and what happens when different narratives run up against each other. As he did in A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany: Memories of a Nation, MacGregor brilliantly combines objects, places, and ideas to examine and, ultimately, illuminate these pressing contemporary concerns.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525521464
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/30/2018
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

NEIL MacGREGOR was director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015. His previous books include A History of the World in 100 Objects, Shakespeare's Restless World, and Germany: Memories of a Nation, between them translated into more than a dozen languages. In 2010, he was made a member of the Order of Merit, the UK's highest civil honor. He is now chair of the steering committee of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction: Believing and Belonging
(Continues…)

Excerpted from "Living with the Gods"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Neil MacGregor.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Introduction: Believing And Belonging vii

Part 1 Our Place in the Pattern

1 The Beginnings Of Belief 2

2 Fire And State 14

3 Water Of Life And Death 32

4 The Return Of The Light 50

5 Harvest And Homage 64

Part 2 Believing Together

6 Living With The Dead 80

7 Birth And The Body 98

8 A Place In Tradition 112

9 Let Us Pray 125

10 The Power Of Song 138

Part 3 Theatres of Faith

11 The House Of God 154

12 Gifts To The Gods 170

13 Holy Killing 186

14 To Be A Pilgrim 200

15 Festival Time 217

Part 4 The Power Of Images

16 The Protectoresses 240

17 The "Work Of Art In Times of Spiritual Reproduction 254

18 The Accretion Of Meaning 268

19 Change Your Life 282

20 Rejecting The Image, Revering The Word 296

Part 5 One God or Many

21 The Blessings Of Many Gods 316

22 The Power Of One 330

23 Spirits Of Place 342

24 If God Be With Us 352

25 Tolerating And not Tolerating 370

Part 6 Powers Earthly And Divine

26 The Mandate Of Heaven 388

27 Thy Kingdom Come 400

28 Turning The Screw 418

29 'There Is No God!' 439

30 Living With Each Other 456

List of Illustrations 472

Editorial Reviews

10/15/2018
MacGregor (A History of the World in 100 Objects), former director of the British Museum, assembles art objects to understand belief through the ages in a book that reads like a guided tour of the museum. MacGregor organizes the tour into six themes: the place of humans in the universe, community through belief, the performance of faith, faith work performed by images, the argument between mono- and poly-theism, and the relationship between divine and earthly power. For each section, MacGregor selects a number of items, including some not in the museum’s collections, such as the patterned stone at Newgrange and cave paintings in South Africa. For the most part, though, he depends on the museum—and the experts who work there—for discussions of, for instance, the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Marbles, the Sutton Hoo mask, and Egyptian mummies. (There is, perhaps surprisingly, no acknowledgement of recent controversies regarding the sourcing and ownership of many of these objects.) The commentary of experts is set off from the rest of the text in italic type, giving the book the feel of actual museum notes next to artifacts. This is a visually propulsive catalogue of the wonders of the British Museum. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

This highly enjoyable study of religion shows how central it was—and is—to our world. . . . [MacGregor] and his publishers must be hoping that Living with the Gods sells as prodigiously as A History of the World in 100 Objects did. It certainly should, as it deserves to. . . . This is one of the most generously illustrated books I have seen at this price in years. . . . Anyone wishing to deepen if not change their life, will certainly benefit from this remarkable book.”
—Douglas Murray, Evening Standard (London)

“It is because MacGregor draws on his knowledge to open new perspectives that Living with the Gods is such a mind-expanding book.”
—John Carey, The Sunday Times

“The writing is clear and personable, and the illustrations nothing short of spectacular—230 images in both color and black and white. A fine popular work on the material history of religion.”
—Ray Olson, Booklist

“A whirlwind, though deeply satisfying, tour of the world’s religions. . . . As good a comparative survey of religion as there is and a pleasure to contemplate.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

From the Publisher

★ 2018-09-02
Former British Museum and National Gallery director MacGregor (Germany: Memories of a Nation, 2015, etc.) takes readers on a whirlwind, though deeply satisfying, tour of the world's religions.
The protestations of compatriots Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens aside, it is "one of the central facts of human existence," writes MacGregor, that people everywhere have cultivated worldviews that extend beyond individual lifetimes to reach the afterlife as well as a shared sense of what it means to be human. Arguing that many of the concerns of religion are coextensive with those of politics, the author adds that the way in which we share existence with the gods has bearing on how we share the world with other humans. Belief dates back a very long way; MacGregor opens his long, richly illustrated narrative with a consideration of the "Lion Man," an anthropomorphic carving 40,000 years old, recovered from a German cave, that "represents a cognitive leap to a world beyond nature, and beyond human experience." It also speaks to a people who depended on interactions with animals for their living—and who would have known big cats for real. Religion, MacGregor suggests, may seem static, but it changes with the times; as an example, he writes of once-polluted holy rivers of India that may become cleaner with the legal recognition that rivers, trees, and the like have the rights of personhood (for if a corporation can, then why not a river?). This is a world-ranging book of sharp juxtapositions and surprises: MacGregor writes of a Torah binder in the same breath as he does the dreadlocks of young Vanuatuan men as well as the meeting of the worlds of the beatific Buddha, the suffering Christ, and the ancient gods: "Clothed in drapery clearly influenced by Greek and Roman models," he writes of one statue, "the Buddha is shown here in mid-career, a halo behind his head, already in his enlightened state."
As good a comparative survey of religion as there is and a pleasure to contemplate.

Kirkus Reviews

Living with the Gods: On Beliefs and Peoples

Living with the Gods: On Beliefs and Peoples

Hardcover

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Overview

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About the Author

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Table of Contents

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Overview

Product Details

About the Author

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Table of Contents

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