Product: Book ISBN-10: 0-88133-657-2 ISBN-13: 9780881336573 Publisher: Waveland Press Country: Year: March 1992 Size: 13.97 x 21.08 x 1.52cm Number of pages: 274 Weight: 340gr Binding: Paperback
Product Description Three famous Malinowski essays! Malinowski, one of the all-time great anthropologists of the world, had a talent for bringing together in single comprehension the warm reality of human living with the cool abstractions of science. His pages have become an almost indispensable link between the knowing of exotic and remote people with theoretical knowledge about humankind. An important collection of three of his most famous essays, Magic, Science and Religion offers readers a set of concepts about religion, magic, science, rite and myth in the course of forming vivid impressions and understandings of the Trobrianders of New Guinea.
reviews
The Finest Story in the World
An easy way to discover one of the most important ethnologists, and what ethnology is about: studying »primitive« societies to find out the rules that govern ours. Two examples: religions tell groups how to help members facing difficult times take decisions that won't be detrimental to the community; myths make a community's guiding principles unquestionable (in the 19th century when »nationalities« were invented they were given ancestors and histories).
Malinowski's »Magic, Science, and Religion«
The title essay was probably the single most influential article written by Bronislaw Malinowski. This 1992 reprint edition from Waveland Press is most welcome. The ideas in this essay have become so commonplace in anthropology that nobody seems to find it necessary to refer back to their original source in Malinowski. The essay itself is lively and still sounds fresh some three-quarters of a century after it was written. Malinowski is convincing when he points to ways that magic, science, and religion are closely related. After reading his insights, it isn't possible to consider that any one of them should always be given priority over the other two in our ways of thinking about the universe. Read this book and you'll learn some of the reasons why people try to solve their problems by choosing magic, science, or religion according to the specific circumstances in which they find themselves.
well written
it was well written, but not my favorite. check out something by Peter Kreeft … amazing