Böcker av Philip C. (University of Queensland) Almond

Alongside Jesus and Muhammad, the Buddha is the most significant figure in the history of religion. Philip Almond's engaging new book is the first to combine a history of early traditions about Siddhartha Gautama's life with an authoritative account of how he and the tantalizing philosophy inspired by him came to the attention of the West. It takes the reader on a remarkable journey encompassing (among other topics) Alexander the Great, the courts of the Mongol Khans, Jesuit missions to China and Japan, and intrepid European travellers and scholars from the modern era. Melding Pali and Sanskrit sources with vivid reception, Almond presents the Buddha's story as multi-layered: one of transition from a world of angels and demons, water and tree spirits, to an altogether different context where Buddhism mixed with the cultural preoccupations of those who tentatively - sometimes following false trails - tried to make sense of its fascinating complexity.

Tells the story of Mary Magdalene from its beginnings in the New Testament up to the present time. This book is the first major work on Mary Magdalene in thirty years. It explores the many different Mary Magdalenes created for each age.

Philip Almond explores the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in seventeenth-century English thought. He creates a vivid picture of the mainstream and marginal theological and philosophical readings of the Edenic tradition, and of its central role in the major intellectual issues, both religious and secular.

This book is devoted to demonic possession and exorcism in early modern England, and offers modernized versions of significant texts on nine cases of demonic possession from the period 1570 to 1650. The modernized texts are placed within the context of an introduction to demonic possession in England across the period.

This book examines the British discovery of Buddhism during the Victorian period. It was only during the nineteenth century that Buddhism became, in the western mind, a religious tradition separate from Hinduism. As a result, Buddha emerged from a realm of myth and was addressed as a historical figure.