The Quest

History and Meaning in Religion

Paperback, 187 pages

English language

Published May 1984 by University Of Chicago Press.

ISBN:
978-0-226-20386-7
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5 stars (1 review)

In The Quest Mircea Eliade stresses the cultural function that a study of the history of religions can play in a secularized society. He writes for the intelligent general reader in the hope that what he calls a new humanism “will be engendered by a confrontation of modern Western man with unknown or less familiar worlds of meaning.”

3 editions

reviewed The Quest by Mircea Eliade (Midway Reprint)

An authoritative introductory survey to the field of history and phenomenology of religion

5 stars

This is an authoritative introductory survey to the field of history and phenomenology of religion as a whole, with sincere methodological discussions, informative and at the same time concise introduction to the literature. It might also be the best of Mircea Eliade's oeuvre except for his monumental A History of Religious Ideas and perhaps Patterns in Comparative Religion. His shorter monographs, such as The Myth of the Eternal Return, are written in a rather sloppy manner, leading the readers to doubt that Eliade is not really a thinker with a clear mind, which is thoroughly disproven in the writing of this book.

While the book is factually a survey, even an introductory survey, it is still extremely relevant for those who have more-or-less gotten into the field. Even those who have already read all the major works of Eliade, Frazer, Levy-Bruhl, Levi-Strauss, Durkheim, Freud, Jung, Malinkowski, Dumezil, etc. will find …

Subjects

  • History of Religions
  • Anthropology
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Phenomenology of Religion
  • Comparative Mythology
  • Comparative Religion