About this item
A landmark work in which the six major, living, international world religions speak to readers in their own words.This magisterial Norton Anthology, edited by world-renowned scholars under the direction of Pulitzer Prize winner Jack Miles, offers a portable library of more than 1,000 primary texts from the world's major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism (Volume 1) ; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Volume 2) . The anthology brings together foundational works -- the Bhagavad Gita, the Daodejing, the Bible, the Qur'an -- with the writings of scholars, seekers, believers, and skeptics whose voices over centuries have kept these religions vital. To help readers encounter strikingly unfamiliar texts with pleasure, this Norton Anthology provides accessible introductions, headnotes, annotations, pronouncing glossaries, maps, illustrations, and chronologies.
About the Author
Dear Fellow Reader:Let's keep reading, shall we? I myself would rather read than write. I'd also rather think than read, and I'd rather dream than think. But this world is not made for dreamers, and so sometimes when I find myself thinking about something, I write about it if no one else has written the book I want to read. Mine is a crazy-quilt background. I'm an ex-Jesuit, an ex-atheist, an ex-journalist, an ex-professor, and currently I'm--well, for the further particulars, you can check me out at www.JackMiles.com. I write about religion, literature, and politics in ever-changing combinations, sometimes veering a bit into music or visual art. Arthur Koestler wrote about the great early astronomer Johannes Kepler that the man never wrote a page that was not alive and kicking. Pages are alive and kicking when their author is after something. It can be something grand: Kepler was after the orbits of the planets. It can be something small: a dog can be after a flea with great intensity. If that's the kind of reading you go for, well, I hope we meet someday! You're my kind of reader.Jack Miles
