ABSTRACT
The central argument of this book is that the contours of the sociology of religion have been shaped by specific ideas about industrial society. The sociological questions that have been asked about religion have therefore tended to reflect these ideas. I shall argue that the various meanings and different degrees of importance that have been attributed to such phenomena as secularization, rationalization and the rise of new religious movements are outcrops of underlying ideas about the transition from pre-industrial to industrial society. I intend to criticize these underlying, but rarely examined, ideas.
