This volume explores the ways in which religion became the object of scientific research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most obvious is the development of an increasingly autonomous science of religion (with founding fathers like Max M]ller and C.P. Tiele). However, within anthropology (Tylor, Frazer), sociology (Durkheim, Max Weber), and psychology (William James), religion also came to be seen as a separate entity to be studied comparatively. To capture this wide field this book focuses on the emergence of the discourse on religion in a broad academic context, among different disciplines. The emphasis is on general socio-historical developments, rather than on individual biographies.
Part I deals with the institutionalization of science of religion in France, Britain, and the Netherlands. Part II focuses on boundary disputes between the emerging "sciences of religion." Part III examines new conceptualizations of religion underlying the new endeavour ("ritual," "magic," "survival").

Arie L. Molendijk, Ph.D. (1991) in Theology, Leiden University, holds a post-doctoral position at Leiden University. He has published extensively on the history of 19th and 20th-century philosophy and theology in Germany and the Netherlands. His most recent book Zwischen Theologie und Soziologie (Gerd Mohn, 1996) is on Ernst Troeltsch' famous typology Church, Sect, Mysticism.
Peter Pels, Ph.D. (1993) in Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, lectures at the Research Centre Religion and Society at the University of Amsterdam. His most recent book is A Politics of Presence. Contacts between Missionaries and Waluguru in Late Colonial Tanganyika (Harwood Publishers, 1998).