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janegrace99's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating and applicable... and also classic Durkheim (i.e. too many tangents and spending way too much time generalizing and pontificating, as all theoreticians have a tendency to do.)
abbsentminded's review against another edition
5.0
Must read for anyone into sociology or religion or sociology of religion.
jorghahaq's review against another edition
4.0
Read this as source material for a project for one of my religion classes in university. Interesting read, however Durkheim is a bit hard to understand sometimes. Not something I would recommend to read just for fun, you need to have a true curiosity of the theory of religion as presented from a sociology view point to get through this because it is dry reading.
wiley01px2022's review against another edition
3.0
Durkheim presents very interesting arguments about the basic definition of religion, including "primitive religion" that is centered around native populations. While some of the logic is based unfortunately based on a gendered and colonialist mindset, it still remains quite relevant to our view of religion and its purposes today. Though I'm not sure why most of the book is focused so heavily on JUST totemism. There are so many more types of religion that don't rely on totemism, and are equally different from religion we saw flourishing in Europe at the time.
nwhyte's review against another edition
2.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1983853.html[return][return][return]I should stop readng the classic works on religion and culture, because I always end up disappointed. In this classic anthropological analysis from the first years of the twentieth century, Durkheim generalises from studies of the totem cults of Australia to conclude that pretty much all intellectual concepts, including scientific theories as well as notions of God and religion, can be examined as socially constructed phenomena. While sympathetic to the conclusion (having studied the history and philosophy of science in a past life) I was not terribly excited by the journey Durkheim takes to get there. His methodology straddles what today would be fairly clearly demarcated territory between philosophy and anthropology, and I found this mixture of concepts frustrating. More specifically, the Australian worshippers (particularly the women) are never given their own voice; we hear only what white anthropologists think of them. A pioneering work, perhaps, but I rather hope that things have moved on in the last century.
labinsky's review against another edition
2.0
foundational text that's been deemed essential but so so racist. i read this three or four times start to finish in undergrad and honestly a critical review and summary would have probably been a better assignment and taken a fraction of the time.