The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

Many books have been written about the success of the West, analyzing why Europe was able to pull ahead of the rest of the world by the end of the Middle Ages. The most common explanations cite the West's superior geography, commerce, and technology. Completely overlooked is the fact that faith in reason, rooted in Christianity's commitment to rational theology, made all these developments possible. Simply put, the conventional wisdom that Western success depended upon overcoming religious barriers to progress is utter nonsense.In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea- that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark's view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and nonsecular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason- While the world's other great belief systems emphasized mystery, obedience, or introspection, Christianity alone embraced logic and reason as the path toward enlightenment, freedom, and progress. That is what made all the difference.In explaining the West's dominance, Stark convincingly debunks long-accepted "truths." For instance, by contending that capitalism thrived centuries before there was a Protestant work ethic-or even Protestants-he counters the notion that the Protestant work ethic was responsible for kicking capitalism into overdrive. In the fifth century, Stark notes, Saint Augustine celebrated theological and material progress and the institution of "exuberant invention." By contrast, long before Augustine, Aristotle had condemned commercial trade as "inconsistent with human virtue"-which helps further underscore that Augustine's times were not the Dark Ages but the incubator for the West's future glories. This is a sweeping, multifaceted survey that takes readers from the Old World to the New, from the past to the present, overturning along the way not only centuries of prejudiced scholarship but the antireligious bias of our own time. The Victory of Reason proves that what we most admire about our world-scientific progress, democratic rule, free commerce-is largely due to Christianity, through which we are all inheritors of this grand tradition.

Rodney Stark is the distinguished professor of the social sciences and codirector of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He also is an honorary professor of sociology at Peking University in Beijing, China. He was previously professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington, and a research sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. His PhD is from UC, Berkeley. Many of his previous books have won national and international awards, and many have been translated into a total of seventeen foreign languages.
Rodney Stark is the distinguished professor of the social sciences and codirector of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He also is an honorary professor of sociology at Peking University in Beijing, China. He was previously professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington, and a research sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. His PhD is from UC, Berkeley. Many of his previous books have won national and international awards, and many have been translated into a total of seventeen foreign languages.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780812972337
ISBN 10	0812972333
Title	The Victory of Reason
Author	Rodney Stark
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2006-09-26
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.