This masterful six-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts. Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices is an extraordinary work, bringing together the scholarship of some 225 experts from around the globe. The encyclopedia's six volumes offer entries on every country of the world, with particular emphasis on the larger nations, as well as Indonesia and the Latin American countries that are traditionally given little attention in English-language reference works. Entries include profiles on religion in the world's smallest countries (the Vatican and San Marino), profiles on religion in recently established or disputed countries (Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh), as well as profiles on religion in some of the world's most remote places (Antarctica and Easter Island). Religions of the World is unique in that it is based in religion "on the ground," tracing the development of each of the 16 major world religious traditions through its institutional expressions in the modern world, its major geographical sites, and its major celebrations. Unlike other works, the encyclopedia also covers the world of religious unbelief as expressed in atheism, humanism, and other traditions.

Rivers' biography of Page is an important addition, and corrective, to our understanding of black spirituality and religion, political organizing, and civic engagement.

The spiritual realm has been the resort of countless Blacks during their sojourn in America. Black Missionary Baptists history blossomed in Reconstruction and matured in Jim Crow Southern society. However, research on Black Baptists at the regional and local levels has been largely neglected. In obscurity are pioneers who blazed a trail of faith in God and set in motion what Carter G. Woodson and others have called the Negro Church. What began many years ago as their religious experience lives on today, but the stories of their time have not been told. Because religion has been a significant influence on Black people it is important to reconstruct and preserve local and regional religious history. Knowledge of the past is vital to understanding the present. William Montgomery, Under Their Own Vine And Fig Tree: The African American Church in the South, 1865-1900, asserted that this time frame deserved more scholarly attention. Southwest Georgia is fertile ground for Black religious history. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois The Black Church, has there been a focus on Blacks and religion in the region. This book resurrects from invisibilitys custody Blacks embrace of Christianity in local and regional settings. Its contents explore denomination identity formation and religion as a means of uplift and advancement in the microcosm of Southwest Georgia. Through it all, Black Baptist ministers were pivotal actors in the religious drama. Although myths and stereotypes about Black ministers of the past abound, they, nevertheless, led the way down freedom road. This book tells of Black preachers of the past, their efforts to uplift and advance the race, and reveals the depth of their creativity, that was repeatedly demonstrated in the founding of local churches and associations that are vibrant today.

Includes Part 1, Number 2: Books and Pamphlets, Including Serials and Contributions to Periodicals July - December)