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| Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements | 
 enlarge | Author: Lorne L. Dawson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
Buy New: $36.46
You Save: $8.49 (19%)
New (8) Used (4) from $27.41
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 702413
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.6
ISBN: 0195420098
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.6
EAN: 9780195420098
ASIN: 0195420098
Publication Date: January 25, 2006
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Product Description
Comprehending Cults, Second Edition, provides a sociological interpretation of the phenomenon of new religious movements. While the author does not offer an apologia for cults--in either a religious or a sociological sense--he does attempt to replace suspicion and misinformation with a greater knowledge of the facts (as best we know them) and a measure of sympathetic understanding.
Completely revised and updated in this second edition, the book examines all aspects of cults, while striving to delineate the very real limits of our knowledge. In addition to dealing with the troublesome aspects of the subject, including issues of violence, sexuality, and brainwashing, the author also considers the possibility that new religious movements are a source of spiritual satisfaction to their members. Offering up-to-date social science research about contemporary religious cults, Comprehending Cults, Second Edition, is ideal for undergraduate sociology of religion and new religious movements courses.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 At last: a book about the reality of "cults" October 14, 1999
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
I strongly recomment this book. It discusses new religious movements from an academic perspective. An excellent antidote to the religious intolerance and panic spread by the counter-cult heresy hunters and the anti-cult thought control advocates.
 blah! March 13, 2000
3 out of 16 found this review helpful
this book's content was good enough, but it was writen rather sloppily and with no read order, that i could see anyway. the author attempts to lose us by using hard-to-follow words and phrases.
 Valuable Insight April 4, 2000
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
A very thorough and clear coverage of the controversies raised by cults. I gained new insights into the topic and would readily recommend this book.
 Dawson's writing is hopeless October 4, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is poor quality.
At McMaster University I was excited to take their Cults in North America course. After having to purchase and read Dawson's Comprehending Cults my excitement changed to agony. This is probably one of the most poorly written university texts I've had to buy.
Here is why
-miscellany of random quotes are splattered among the writing, use of quotes also seem irrelevant to the topics discussed.
-its needlessly wordy you'll read paragraph after paragraph and it just looks like an incoherent mess
-Dawson is bold enough to create his own social scientific model that would only exist in a vacuum...when it comes to examining NRMs in the real world, his model utterly falls apart
-his treatment of NRMs is very condescending: you'd have to read it (which i don't recommend doing)
I actually emailed Lorne Dawson (University of Waterloo), politely asking him about some of the things in his text. Its hard to really explain further here but he gave me a very dismissive reply.
The problem is that NRMs and cults are difficult to study scientifically, Dawson work exemplifies this fact. Mr. Dawson, that is not a compliment.
I want my money back.
Deeply biased March 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The scholarship here is certainly broad, but that is almost entirely overshadowed by the author's anti-religion biases.
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