This book was definitely a good summary of the thoughts of eight main historical figures (with a few others thrown in here and there). However, in many cases, the summaries were not so much about religion, but rather mythologies that sometimes masquerade as religion, at least in some people's opinions. For example, the ideas of Mircea Eliade, to me, are simply mythologies and barely constitute the basis of a veritable religion (and are pretty boring reading, to boot). And Karl Marx's ideas are so stepped in the socioeconomic realm that one cannot really call his work a "theory" of religion. On the other hand, the interesting work of Freud and Durkheim are specifically related to the subject of religion and are good additions to the book.

Thus, for me, this book is sort of a smattering of material that is worthwhile and entertaining reading - but may not be living up to the title of the book. As just one example, there is actually no discussion of the major thinkers who have put forward cognitive and biological hypotheses (for they are not "theories") of religion. (The section on Freud does not really count towards this because his work was not so much cognitive, as psychoanalytic.) Thus, for me, this book did not really discuss theories of religion, per se, but theories of various aspects of what some might call religion and others might call folklore, legend, or mythology.

This is a worthwhile book because you get a condensed view of the thoughts of many notable thinkers from wide ranges of disciplines (such as anthropology, sociology, etc.) but keep in mind that these are not "theories" of religion. They are, if anything, hypotheses and they are, if nothing else, only about relative aspects of various belief systems. If you are more concerned about the origins of religion (and thus a true "theory") I recommend a book like Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained" or the books by Michael Shermer, such as "How We Believe."

Another problem I had with the book were the footnotes. Sometimes they contained just references and other times they contained material worth reading. In all cases, the "material worth reading" was short enough that it should have been placed in the main text. The constant shifting back and forth in this book made it a slower (and less entertaining) read for me than it probably otherwise would have been.

Overall, however, I think this was a well-researched book and contains a lot of good material. It just did not really cover the aspects of religion that I was hoping for.

Daniel Pals provides us with a review of 150 years worth of Social Science writings that quest an explanation of religion. The author chose to review the significant writings and their pertinent thoughts about religion of; E.BTylor, James Frazer, Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkhiem, Karl Marx, Mirea Eliade, E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Clifford Geertz. Pals provides a quick review of each author and their view of religion and then follows with a critique section about each author's body of works. Pals formula for discussion on the topic of religion is succinct and allows for easy comparison between the aforementioned writers of social theory. I find this book as a very useful reference but must say that his failure to add reviews of Max Weber and Max Muller while retaining Geertz is just not justified.

This book provides an excellent background to the study of religion. In addition, it introduces the reader to certain key ideas of various thinkers he might not get around to reading: Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, James Frazer, Mircea Eliade, E. E. Evans-Prichard, Clifford Geertz, and E. B. Tylor. My only problem with the book is that Pals does not introduce us to the thought of a traditional Christian writer.