Blackwell Reference Online

The original Penguin Handbook of Living Religions, published in 1984, quickly established itself in Europe and America as a standard introduction to the major religions in the modern world for students, professionals in various fields, and general readers. Written by a team of leading international scholars in a clear and readable style, each chapter provides a general introduction to the sources and history of the religion, then its teachings, practices, popular traditions and its twentieth-century developments.

This New Handbook of Living Religions not only updates existing chapters to reflect events in the 1990s and to account for recent scholarship, but also includes new material on modern China, and new chapters on gender issues and spirituality. In addition there is a whole new section looking at modern diaspora religions in the West, with a chapter on the international black African diaspora and four new chapters on the South Asian religions in the U.S. Canada, Britain and Australia. This section on the religions of minority communities concludes with a further new chapter looking at these religious migrations in a comparative international perspective.