ABSTRACT
Eileen Bartan Barker teaches at the London School of Economics. She is very well known for her study New Religious Movements. As far as the religious movements are concerned, Barker adopts a neutral, social science approach; she respects the different behaviors and rituals, and is far from promoting any kind of antimovement campaign. Barker's book contributes in a fluent and understandable style to disproving prejudices, and provides useful information for a better knowledge of the various groups and movements. James Beckford's first work was research on the Jehovah's Witnesses that has become a classic study on religious movements. He writes that the concept of religious movements implies an organized attempt to introduce changes within a religion. In Religion and Advanced Industrial Society Beckford presents his project. He argues that the contemporary attempts to grasp the sociological meaning of religion should take into account theories regarding the peculiar characteristics of advanced industrial societies and of the new world order.
