A lyrical memoir of living under, and escaping from, anti-Semitism and the tyranny of communism.“There are scenes in this book that the reader will never forget.”—Mircea EliadeWith a new Afterword by the author and a new Introduction by bestselling historian Wilfred M. McClayIn Notes from the Other Side of Night, Juliana Geran Pilon provides a beautiful memoir of a return to her native Romania in 1975, whic...

"Here finally are Eliade's memoirs of the first thirty years of his life in Mac Linscott Rickett's crisp and lucid English translation. They present a fascinating account of the early development of a Renaissance talent, expressed in everything from daily and periodical journalism, realistic and fantastic fiction, and general nonfiction works to distinguished contributions to the history of religions. Autobiography follows an apparently amazingly candid report of this remarkable man's prog...

"Here finally are Eliade's memoirs of the first thirty years of his life in Mac Linscott Rickett's crisp and lucid English translation. They present a fascinating account of the early development of a Renaissance talent, expressed in everything from daily and periodical journalism, realistic and fantastic fiction, and general nonfiction works to distinguished contributions to the history of religions. Autobiography follows an apparently amazingly candid report of this remarkable man's prog...

"Everyone who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision."—Martin E. Marty, The New York Times Book ReviewThis extraordinary work delves into the subject of religion in the prehistoric and ancient worlds—humankind's earliest quests for meaning. From Neanderthal burials to the mythology of the Iron Age, to the religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Israel, India, and beyond, it offers both an appreciation of the wid...

In this exuberant and touching portrait of youth, Eliade recounts the fictional version of his university years in late 1920's Bucharest. Marked by a burgeoning desire to 'suck out all the marrow of life', the protagonist throws himself into his studies; engaging his professors and peers in philosophical discourse, becoming one of the founding members of the Student's Union, and opening---up the attic refuge of his isolated teenage years as a hotspot for political debate and romantic explo...

Journal IV is the first publication, in a translation from the Romanian manuscript, of the journal that Mircea Eliade kept during the last seven years of his life. In this period, Eliade is ensconced as a famous scholar—his works are being translated into many languages and books about him arrive regularly in the mail. His encounters with scholars of like repute are recorded in the journal; after a party in Paris, Eliade shares a taxi with Claude Lévi-Strauss and inadvertently mak...

In The Quest Mircea Eliade stresses the cultural function that a study of the history of religions can play in a secularized society. He writes for the intelligent general reader in the hope that what he calls a new humanism "will be engendered by a confrontation of modern Western man with unknown or less familiar worlds of meaning.""Each of these essays contains insights which will be fruitful and challenging for professional students of religion, but at the same time they...

The second volume of the extraordinary history that "should be an essential resource for generations to come" ( Parabola).In volume two of this monumental work, Mircea Eliade continues his magisterial progress through the history of religious ideas. The religions of ancient China, Brahmanism and Hinduism, Buddha and his contemporaries, Roman religion, Celtic and German religions, Judaism, the Hellenistic period, the Iranian syntheses, and the birth of Chri...

The short-sighted adolescent is a poor schoolboy who is in love with literature, and tries to emulate the lives and works of the writers he most admires. He is also fascinated by science and history, and stays up all night reading. At the age of 17 he decides to write a novel to prove to his teachers that he is not as mediocre as his fellow pupils, and is prepared to give up everything in order to do so. The novel is written in a series of notebooks - the 'diary' of the title - but instead...

In the period domoninated by the triumphs of scientific rationalism, how do we account for the extraordinary success of such occult movements as astrology or the revival of witchcraft? From his perspective as a historian of religions, the eminent scholar Mircea Eliade shows that such popular trends develop from archaic roots and periodically resurface in certain myths, symbols, and rituals. In six lucid essays collected for this volume, Eliade reveals the profound religious significance th...

The conclusion of the three-volume history "rendered with the talent of one who is not only an academic writer but a novelist of considerable distinction" (David J. Levy, Times Higher Education Supplement).In A History of Religious Ideas. Mircea Eliade examines the movement of Jewish thought out of ancient Eurasia, the Christian transformation of the Mediterranean area and Europe, and the rise and diffusion of Islam from approximately the sixth thr...

A landmark work in the history of religions from a pioneer in the fieldFirst published in English in 1954, this founding work in the historical study of religions secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade. Referring to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship in no fewer than half a dozen European languages, The Myth of the Eternal Return illuminates the religious beliefs and rituals of a wide va...