Captive Gods : religion and the rise of social science / Kwame Anthony Appiah.

By:

Appiah, Kwame Anthony [author]

Language: English Publication details: New Haven : Yale, 2025.ISBN:

‎ 9780300233063

Subject(s):

Religion and society

Summary: The foundations of modern social science were built on the study of religion, the acclaimed thinker Kwame Anthony Appiah argues. Delving into the intellectual currents of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he investigates how formative thinkers―notably Edward Burnett Tylor, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber―grappled with the concepts of society and religion as interdependent categories. Appiah shows how their efforts to define religion, or evade the task, mark the power and limitations of social thought in ways that persist among theorists today. Religion was not merely an object of study but a framework through which early social scientists established sociology as a discipline.

Item type:

Print List(s) this item appears in: Global Library New Arrivals June 2026

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Holdings
Cover image	Item type	Current library	Home library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Materials specified	Vol info	URL	Copy number	Status	Notes	Date due	Barcode	Item holds	Item hold queue priority	Course reserves
	Print		OPJGU Sonepat- Campus	General Books	Main Library	306.6 AP-C (Browse shelf(Opens below))					Checked out		18/08/2026	159365

The foundations of modern social science were built on the study of religion, the acclaimed thinker Kwame Anthony Appiah argues. Delving into the intellectual currents of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he investigates how formative thinkers―notably Edward Burnett Tylor, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber―grappled with the concepts of society and religion as interdependent categories. Appiah shows how their efforts to define religion, or evade the task, mark the power and limitations of social thought in ways that persist among theorists today. Religion was not merely an object of study but a framework through which early social scientists established sociology as a discipline.

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