Gods in the Global Village: The World's Religions in Sociological Perspective (Sociology for a New Century Series) - Softcover

Religious conflict, linked with ethnic and cultural differences are part of the everyday discussion in classrooms and on campuses around the world. This book directly responds to issues of social problems and issues prevalent in the world today in a style that is both authoritative and attention-getting.

A current user of Gods in The Global Village said, "the bottom line is this is a terrific book, the best I’ve found for this course in twenty years of teaching. It reflects solid scholarship, but is written in an accessible style, and addresses what I believe are the most important issues in our world today. It offers what I want my students to learn! I look forward to the revised edition, which I will certainly use in my class."

Lester R. Kurtz is Professor of Public Sociology at George Masonthe University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches the comparative sociology of religion, peace and conflict, social movements, globalization, and both Western and non-Western social theory. He lectures regularly at the European Peaee University and was previously Director of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. and He holds a master’s in Religion from Yale Divinity School and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago. He is editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Elsevier), coeditor of Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective (Blackwell), and coeditor of The Web of Violence: From Interpersonal to Global (University of Illinois Press). He is the author of numerous books and articles on religion and conflict peace, including The Nuclear Cage: A Sociology of the Arms Race (Prentice Hall) and The Politics of Heresy: The Modernist Crisis in Roman Catholicism (University of California Press), which received the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Distinguished Book Award. He is currently working on books titled Gandhi’s Paradox and Gods and Bombs, as well as a documentary film, Peaceful Warriors: The History of Nonviolence, with James Otis.

Dr. Kurtz is the past Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association as well as the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association, which awarded him its Robin Williams Distinguished Career Award in 2005. He has lectured in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and has taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Delhi University in India, and Tunghai University in Taiwan.