Mircea Eliade and Joseph M. Kitagawa:The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology
Mircea Eliade was born in Bucharest in 1907 and began teaching in the field the history of religions in 1946 at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was a member of the University of Chicago faculty from 1957 until his death in 1986. His many books include: Cosmos and History (1959), The Sacred and the Profane (1959), Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1960), Images and Symbols (1969), and Myths and Reality (1963). Published by University of Chicago Press, 1959. The material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock. Preface by Jerald C. Brauer The study of the history of religions appears to be at a critical point in its development. This is true of the discipline both in the East and in the West. For decades it seemed ready to come into its own as a major area of study in the universities and colleges. At a few European institutions it achieved such a status, but in the universities of English-speaking countries and most European schools, it remained an honored but peripheral discipl