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"Religion and the Transformations of Capitalism" addresses from a sociological standpoint the interaction of religions and forms of contemporary capitalism. The book is divided into three parts: Part One offers a series of readings of the "classics" re-interpreted in the light of contemporary scholarship of the type Weber himself conducted; Part Two contains three rather different discussions of the connection between resurgent capitalism and new religious movements in developed societies; Part Three deals with aspects of "globalization" and "post-modernity" and their inter-relation with religious transformations.
Discussions of the global socio-cultural and economic matrix and its religious dimensions has grown in importance since the collapse of Marxist socialism and the resurgence of religious, national and ethnic identities. The collection draws upon the research and experience of scholars whose first hand acquaintance with diverse yet representative settings allosw the reader to explore a wide range of interactions between economic systems and their socio-cultural contexts. This outstanding collection will be an invaluable resource for students of Religious studies, comparative religions and sociological theory.

Richard Roberts has assembled strong collection of high quality essays ... The present edition serves as an exempler of interdisciplinary analysis of religions in socio-cultural context. Anthropology, religious studies and sociology are brought together without retentivenss wih regard to subject boundries to engage constructively clearly with a single, if widely-ramifying poblemaic, the religion/capitalism matrix, partiularly in its state of relative flux in the condition of late modernity.

Richard H. Roberts

Richard H. Roberts is Professor of Religious Studies at Lancaster University. He has not shrunk from controversy and is known among senior British academic figures for his pursuit of a consistently critical line against the managerialisation and bureaucratisation of both universities and churches. His publications include Hope and its Hieroglyph: A Critical Decipherment of Ernst Bloch’s ‘Principle of Hope’ (1990), A Theology on its Way?: Essays on Karl Barth (1992), The Recovery of Rhetoric: Persuasive Discourse and Disciplinarity in the Human Sciences (co-edited with J. M. M. Good, 1993), Religion and the Transformations of Capitalism: Comparative Approaches (editor, 1995), Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World (co-edited with Joanne Pearson and Geoffrey Samuel, 1998) and Time and Value (co-edited with Scott Lash and Andrew Quick, 1998).