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In the Beginnings: Early man and his gods
In the Beginnings Early man and his gods Author:H. R. Hays A definitive and dramatic survey of prehistoric and contemporary primitive religions, gods, and myths. Here the reader goes around the globe to examine and explore with the author what is known of man's earliest religions from paleolithic and neolithic Europe, Mesopotamia, North Africa, China, India, and the Americas to the religions of contempo... more »rary primitives in Africa and Oceania.
H.R. Hays uses the conclusions of archaeologists and anthropologists to brilliantly re-create the whole religious world of primitive men. He demonstrates how religion involves all of man's belief about the world and his attempts to shape that world and is summed up in man's habit of making gods and goddesses in his own image.
The story is varied and exciting, encompassing the every-changing relation between god and man. The growth of early religion is interpreted as an interaction between the pressures of environment and the drives of the unconscious - human needs vs. human dreams - forging art and poetry in an effort to answer the great questions of life and death.
History, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and religion are skillfully blended together in this unique and lively book. In the Beginnings is a major contribution to cultural history and will delight both the scholar and the layman.« less