A History of Religious Ideas - Eliade, Mircea; Trask, Willard R. (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1978)
Volume 1. From the stone age to the Eleusinian mysteries. In the beginning: magico-religious behavior of the Paleanthropians -- The longest revolution: the discovery of agriculture, Mesolithic and Neolithic -- The Mesopotamian religions -- Religious ideas and political crises in ancient Egypt -- Megaliths, temples, ceremonial centers: Occident, Mediterranean, Indus Valley -- The religions of the Hittites and the Canaanites -- "When Israel was a child" -- The religion of the Indo-Europeans, the Vedic gods -- India before Gautama Buddha: from the cosmic sacrifice to the supreme identity Atman-Brahman -- Zeus and the Greek religion -- The Olympians and the heroes -- The Eleusinian mysteries -- Zarathustra and the Iranian religion -- The religion of Israel in the period of the kings and the prophets -- Dionysus, or bliss recovered -- Volume 2. From Gautama Buddha to the triumph of Christianity. The religions of ancient China -- Brahmanism and Hinduism: the first philosophies and techniques of salvation -- The Buddha and his contemporaries -- The message of the Buddha: from the terror of the eternal return to the bliss of the inexpressible -- Roman religion: from its origins to the prosecution of the Bacchanals -- Celts, Germans, Thracians, and Getae -- Orpheus, Pythagoras, and the new eschatology -- The history of Buddhism from Mahakasyapa to Nagarjuna, Jainism after Mahavira -- The Hindu synthesis: the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita -- The ordeals of Judaism: from apocalypse to exaltation of the Torah -- Syncretism and creativity in the Hellenistic period: the promise of salvation -- New Iranian syntheses -- The birth of Christianity -- Paganism, Christianity, and Gnosis in the Imperial Period -- The twilight of the gods -- Volume 3. From Muhammad to the age of reforms. The religions of ancient Eurasia: Turko-Mongols, Finno-Ugrians, Balto-Slavs -- The Christian churches up to the iconoclastic crisis (eighth to ninth centuries) -- Muhammad and the unfolding of Islam -- Western Catholicism from Charlemagne to Joachim of Floris -- Muslim theologies and mystical traditions -- Judaism from the Bar Kokhba revolt to Hasidism -- Religious movements in Europe: from the late Middle Ages to the eve of the Reformation -- Religion, magic, and Hermetic traditions before and after the Reformation -- Tibetan religions. Volume titles: 1. From the stone age to the Eleusinian mysteries -- 2. From Gautama Buddha to the triumph of Christianity -- 3. From Muhammad to the Age of Reform.
Translation of : Histoire des Croyances et des Idées Religieuses.
Keywords: Religion History.Religions History