Arrival of the Gods

Arrival of the Gods

Author: Erich von Däniken

Publisher: Tantor eBooks

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1862043531

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Examines the various theories which attempt to explain the Nazca phenomena in terms of religious ritual, ancient roads, and astrological symbols


Book Synopsis Arrival of the Gods by : Erich von Däniken

Download or read book Arrival of the Gods written by Erich von Däniken and published by Tantor eBooks. This book was released on 1998 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the various theories which attempt to explain the Nazca phenomena in terms of religious ritual, ancient roads, and astrological symbols


Accidental Gods

Accidental Gods

Author: Anna Della Subin

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 1250296889

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE, THE IRISH TIMES AND THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT A provocative history of men who were worshipped as gods that illuminates the connection between power and religion and the role of divinity in a secular age Ever since 1492, when Christopher Columbus made landfall in the New World and was hailed as a heavenly being, the accidental god has haunted the modern age. From Haile Selassie, acclaimed as the Living God in Jamaica, to Britain’s Prince Philip, who became the unlikely center of a new religion on a South Pacific island, men made divine—always men—have appeared on every continent. And because these deifications always emerge at moments of turbulence—civil wars, imperial conquest, revolutions—they have much to teach us. In a revelatory history spanning five centuries, a cast of surprising deities helps to shed light on the thorny questions of how our modern concept of “religion” was invented; why religion and politics are perpetually entangled in our supposedly secular age; and how the power to call someone divine has been used and abused by both oppressors and the oppressed. From nationalist uprisings in India to Nigerien spirit possession cults, Anna Della Subin explores how deification has been a means of defiance for colonized peoples. Conversely, we see how Columbus, Cortés, and other white explorers amplified stories of their godhood to justify their dominion over native peoples, setting into motion the currents of racism and exclusion that have plagued the New World ever since they touched its shores. At once deeply learned and delightfully antic, Accidental Gods offers an unusual keyhole through which to observe the creation of our modern world. It is that rare thing: a lyrical, entertaining work of ideas, one that marks the debut of a remarkable literary career.


Book Synopsis Accidental Gods by : Anna Della Subin

Download or read book Accidental Gods written by Anna Della Subin and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE, THE IRISH TIMES AND THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT A provocative history of men who were worshipped as gods that illuminates the connection between power and religion and the role of divinity in a secular age Ever since 1492, when Christopher Columbus made landfall in the New World and was hailed as a heavenly being, the accidental god has haunted the modern age. From Haile Selassie, acclaimed as the Living God in Jamaica, to Britain’s Prince Philip, who became the unlikely center of a new religion on a South Pacific island, men made divine—always men—have appeared on every continent. And because these deifications always emerge at moments of turbulence—civil wars, imperial conquest, revolutions—they have much to teach us. In a revelatory history spanning five centuries, a cast of surprising deities helps to shed light on the thorny questions of how our modern concept of “religion” was invented; why religion and politics are perpetually entangled in our supposedly secular age; and how the power to call someone divine has been used and abused by both oppressors and the oppressed. From nationalist uprisings in India to Nigerien spirit possession cults, Anna Della Subin explores how deification has been a means of defiance for colonized peoples. Conversely, we see how Columbus, Cortés, and other white explorers amplified stories of their godhood to justify their dominion over native peoples, setting into motion the currents of racism and exclusion that have plagued the New World ever since they touched its shores. At once deeply learned and delightfully antic, Accidental Gods offers an unusual keyhole through which to observe the creation of our modern world. It is that rare thing: a lyrical, entertaining work of ideas, one that marks the debut of a remarkable literary career.


Little Gods

Little Gods

Author: Meng Jin

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2020-01-14

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 0062935976

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD “Compellingly complex…Expands the future of the immigrant novel even as it holds us in uneasy thrall to the past.” – Gish Jen, New York Times Book Review Combining the emotional resonance of Home Fire with the ambition and innovation of Asymmetry, a lyrical and thought-provoking debut novel that explores the complex web of grief, memory, time, physics, history, and selfhood in the immigrant experience, and the complicated bond between daughters and mothers. On the night of June Fourth, a woman gives birth in a Beijing hospital alone. Thus begins the unraveling of Su Lan, a brilliant physicist who until this moment has successfully erased her past, fighting what she calls the mind’s arrow of time. When Su Lan dies unexpectedly seventeen years later, it is her daughter Liya who inherits the silences and contradictions of her life. Liya, who grew up in America, takes her mother’s ashes to China—to her, an unknown country. In a territory inhabited by the ghosts of the living and the dead, Liya’s memories are joined by those of two others: Zhu Wen, the woman last to know Su Lan before she left China, and Yongzong, the father Liya has never known. In this way a portrait of Su Lan emerges: an ambitious scientist, an ambivalent mother, and a woman whose relationship to her own past shapes and ultimately unmakes Liya’s own sense of displacement. A story of migrations literal and emotional, spanning time, space and class, Little Gods is a sharp yet expansive exploration of the aftermath of unfulfilled dreams, an immigrant story in negative that grapples with our tenuous connections to memory, history, and self.


Book Synopsis Little Gods by : Meng Jin

Download or read book Little Gods written by Meng Jin and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD “Compellingly complex…Expands the future of the immigrant novel even as it holds us in uneasy thrall to the past.” – Gish Jen, New York Times Book Review Combining the emotional resonance of Home Fire with the ambition and innovation of Asymmetry, a lyrical and thought-provoking debut novel that explores the complex web of grief, memory, time, physics, history, and selfhood in the immigrant experience, and the complicated bond between daughters and mothers. On the night of June Fourth, a woman gives birth in a Beijing hospital alone. Thus begins the unraveling of Su Lan, a brilliant physicist who until this moment has successfully erased her past, fighting what she calls the mind’s arrow of time. When Su Lan dies unexpectedly seventeen years later, it is her daughter Liya who inherits the silences and contradictions of her life. Liya, who grew up in America, takes her mother’s ashes to China—to her, an unknown country. In a territory inhabited by the ghosts of the living and the dead, Liya’s memories are joined by those of two others: Zhu Wen, the woman last to know Su Lan before she left China, and Yongzong, the father Liya has never known. In this way a portrait of Su Lan emerges: an ambitious scientist, an ambivalent mother, and a woman whose relationship to her own past shapes and ultimately unmakes Liya’s own sense of displacement. A story of migrations literal and emotional, spanning time, space and class, Little Gods is a sharp yet expansive exploration of the aftermath of unfulfilled dreams, an immigrant story in negative that grapples with our tenuous connections to memory, history, and self.


Slave Species of the Gods

Slave Species of the Gods

Author: Michael Tellinger

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-09-10

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 1591438071

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Our origins as a slave species and the Anunnaki legacy in our DNA • Reveals compelling new archaeological and genetic evidence for the engineered origins of the human species, first proposed by Zecharia Sitchin in The 12th Planet • Shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA • Identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa as the city of the Anunnaki leader Enki Scholars have long believed that the first civilization on Earth emerged in Sumer some 6,000 years ago. However, as Michael Tellinger reveals, the Sumerians and Egyptians inherited their knowledge from an earlier civilization that lived at the southern tip of Africa and began with the arrival of the Anunnaki more than 200,000 years ago. Sent to Earth in search of life-saving gold, these ancient Anunnaki astronauts from the planet Nibiru created the first humans as a slave race to mine gold--thus beginning our global traditions of gold obsession, slavery, and god as dominating master. Revealing new archaeological and genetic evidence in support of Zecharia Sitchin’s revolutionary work with pre-biblical clay tablets, Tellinger shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA--which explains why less than 3 percent of our DNA is active. He identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa, complete with thousands of mines, as the city of Anunnaki leader Enki and explains their lost technologies that used the power of sound as a source of energy. Matching key mythologies of the world’s religions to the Sumerian clay tablet stories on which they are based, he details the actual events behind these tales of direct physical interactions with “god,” concluding with the epic flood--a perennial theme of ancient myth--that wiped out the Anunnaki mining operations. Tellinger shows that, as humanity awakens to the truth about our origins, we can overcome our programmed animalistic and slave-like nature, tap in to our dormant Anunnaki DNA, and realize the longevity and intelligence of our creators as well as learn the difference between the gods of myth and the true loving God of our universe.


Book Synopsis Slave Species of the Gods by : Michael Tellinger

Download or read book Slave Species of the Gods written by Michael Tellinger and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-09-10 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our origins as a slave species and the Anunnaki legacy in our DNA • Reveals compelling new archaeological and genetic evidence for the engineered origins of the human species, first proposed by Zecharia Sitchin in The 12th Planet • Shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA • Identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa as the city of the Anunnaki leader Enki Scholars have long believed that the first civilization on Earth emerged in Sumer some 6,000 years ago. However, as Michael Tellinger reveals, the Sumerians and Egyptians inherited their knowledge from an earlier civilization that lived at the southern tip of Africa and began with the arrival of the Anunnaki more than 200,000 years ago. Sent to Earth in search of life-saving gold, these ancient Anunnaki astronauts from the planet Nibiru created the first humans as a slave race to mine gold--thus beginning our global traditions of gold obsession, slavery, and god as dominating master. Revealing new archaeological and genetic evidence in support of Zecharia Sitchin’s revolutionary work with pre-biblical clay tablets, Tellinger shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA--which explains why less than 3 percent of our DNA is active. He identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa, complete with thousands of mines, as the city of Anunnaki leader Enki and explains their lost technologies that used the power of sound as a source of energy. Matching key mythologies of the world’s religions to the Sumerian clay tablet stories on which they are based, he details the actual events behind these tales of direct physical interactions with “god,” concluding with the epic flood--a perennial theme of ancient myth--that wiped out the Anunnaki mining operations. Tellinger shows that, as humanity awakens to the truth about our origins, we can overcome our programmed animalistic and slave-like nature, tap in to our dormant Anunnaki DNA, and realize the longevity and intelligence of our creators as well as learn the difference between the gods of myth and the true loving God of our universe.


Arrival of the Gods

Arrival of the Gods

Author: Erich von Däniken

Publisher: Tantor eBooks

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1618030027

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Nazca, once only an isolated settlement in the midst of the Peruvian desert, is today the meeting place for archaeologists from around the world. From here you can fly over the celebrated Nazca pampa and appreciate the massive scale of the extraordinary markings on the surrounding landscape. Some of these lines are over twenty kilometers long!Drawing on over thirty years of study, Erich von Daniken examines the various theories that attempt to explain the Nazca phenomena in terms of religious ritual, ancient roads, and astrological symbols. With the help of numerous photographs taken by the author---half-hanging from a small airplane---he describes the many mysteries of Nazca and puts forward a startling revolutionary solution to one of archaeology's greatest enigmas.


Book Synopsis Arrival of the Gods by : Erich von Däniken

Download or read book Arrival of the Gods written by Erich von Däniken and published by Tantor eBooks. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nazca, once only an isolated settlement in the midst of the Peruvian desert, is today the meeting place for archaeologists from around the world. From here you can fly over the celebrated Nazca pampa and appreciate the massive scale of the extraordinary markings on the surrounding landscape. Some of these lines are over twenty kilometers long!Drawing on over thirty years of study, Erich von Daniken examines the various theories that attempt to explain the Nazca phenomena in terms of religious ritual, ancient roads, and astrological symbols. With the help of numerous photographs taken by the author---half-hanging from a small airplane---he describes the many mysteries of Nazca and puts forward a startling revolutionary solution to one of archaeology's greatest enigmas.


The Last War

The Last War

Author: Sambit Daspatnaik

Publisher:

Published: 2020-01-22

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9781094687049

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The year was 2080 BCE... The epic Mahabharata war that was fought thousands of years ago between the Pandavas and the Kauravas was thought to be the last. But generations later, everyone was mistaken.The descendants of the Pandavas and the Kauravas (Pauravas) faced a mammoth invasion by the Gandharvas. The Pauravas had to face new geographical and political challenges to save the land of Bharata (Ancient India). New lessons were learned, old secrets were unveiled and new allies were made. Would the Pauravas be able to save the city of Moenjo and Hariapa? Would the Ancient Aliens (the sky Gods) really come to their rescue? Read on to know more in the story "The Last War".Can we really rely on an extra-terrestrial object as the source of unlimited power? What would be the repercussion? Read on to know more in the story "Genesis".A team of researchers went to an alien planet that was inhabited by humanoid species. However, they were faced by an imminent danger. Would Captain Hari get an answer to the imminent threat that lies ahead for his crew? Read on to know more in the story "The Holy Temple of Eula".Anna hated her eyes, until their space ship met with an imminent danger. But what you think as a curse can turn out to be your greatest blessing in a blink of an eye. Read on to know how in the story "Blink". What if our Sun was on the verge of extinction? And what if we could resurrect our dying star? Read on to know more in the story "Resurrection".Sambit Daspatnaik offers a collection of Science Fiction stories and fantasies to trigger your mind to explore the unexplored and to ask What If!


Book Synopsis The Last War by : Sambit Daspatnaik

Download or read book The Last War written by Sambit Daspatnaik and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-22 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year was 2080 BCE... The epic Mahabharata war that was fought thousands of years ago between the Pandavas and the Kauravas was thought to be the last. But generations later, everyone was mistaken.The descendants of the Pandavas and the Kauravas (Pauravas) faced a mammoth invasion by the Gandharvas. The Pauravas had to face new geographical and political challenges to save the land of Bharata (Ancient India). New lessons were learned, old secrets were unveiled and new allies were made. Would the Pauravas be able to save the city of Moenjo and Hariapa? Would the Ancient Aliens (the sky Gods) really come to their rescue? Read on to know more in the story "The Last War".Can we really rely on an extra-terrestrial object as the source of unlimited power? What would be the repercussion? Read on to know more in the story "Genesis".A team of researchers went to an alien planet that was inhabited by humanoid species. However, they were faced by an imminent danger. Would Captain Hari get an answer to the imminent threat that lies ahead for his crew? Read on to know more in the story "The Holy Temple of Eula".Anna hated her eyes, until their space ship met with an imminent danger. But what you think as a curse can turn out to be your greatest blessing in a blink of an eye. Read on to know how in the story "Blink". What if our Sun was on the verge of extinction? And what if we could resurrect our dying star? Read on to know more in the story "Resurrection".Sambit Daspatnaik offers a collection of Science Fiction stories and fantasies to trigger your mind to explore the unexplored and to ask What If!


A Favourite of the Gods and A Compass Error

A Favourite of the Gods and A Compass Error

Author: Sybille Bedford

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2017-07-11

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 1681370573

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A Favourite of the Gods is the story of two generations of a single family, united by a strong matrilineal bond but divided by the customs of their differing nationalities. Anna Howland, the matriarch and American heiress, born in the 1870s to a prominent, liberal New England family marries an Italian prince and makes her home in Rome; her daughter Constanza, the favorite of the title, inherits her mother’s beauty, intelligence, and wealth, along with her father’s Catholicism, which she soon rejects. When disaster strikes, Anna and the prince fall back on the standards of behavior of their disparate cultures; Constanza, with her European upbringing, is free to plot her own course, and she does so with daring, making an unconventional life for herself in England and on the continent during and after the First World War. Her own daughter Flavia is the heroine of A Compass Error, which begins where the first novel concludes. Flavia too is a brilliant young woman, though both more brash and more faltering than her mother, studying for her entrance exam to Oxford when she becomes involved with a mysterious woman whose arrival at a sensitive moment in Flavia’s adolescence will alter both her and her mother’s lives forever.


Book Synopsis A Favourite of the Gods and A Compass Error by : Sybille Bedford

Download or read book A Favourite of the Gods and A Compass Error written by Sybille Bedford and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Favourite of the Gods is the story of two generations of a single family, united by a strong matrilineal bond but divided by the customs of their differing nationalities. Anna Howland, the matriarch and American heiress, born in the 1870s to a prominent, liberal New England family marries an Italian prince and makes her home in Rome; her daughter Constanza, the favorite of the title, inherits her mother’s beauty, intelligence, and wealth, along with her father’s Catholicism, which she soon rejects. When disaster strikes, Anna and the prince fall back on the standards of behavior of their disparate cultures; Constanza, with her European upbringing, is free to plot her own course, and she does so with daring, making an unconventional life for herself in England and on the continent during and after the First World War. Her own daughter Flavia is the heroine of A Compass Error, which begins where the first novel concludes. Flavia too is a brilliant young woman, though both more brash and more faltering than her mother, studying for her entrance exam to Oxford when she becomes involved with a mysterious woman whose arrival at a sensitive moment in Flavia’s adolescence will alter both her and her mother’s lives forever.


The Arrival of the Old Gods

The Arrival of the Old Gods

Author: Joseph Hopkins

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2017-08-22

Total Pages: 41

ISBN-13: 1543434797

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is one of the short stories that will begin hopefully a series of books involving the old gods.


Book Synopsis The Arrival of the Old Gods by : Joseph Hopkins

Download or read book The Arrival of the Old Gods written by Joseph Hopkins and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is one of the short stories that will begin hopefully a series of books involving the old gods.


A Choice of Gods

A Choice of Gods

Author: Clifford D. Simak

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 150402415X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A handful of humans and a multitude of robots create a new society on an abandoned Earth in this novel by the Nebula Award–winning author of Way Station. What if you woke up one morning on Earth . . . and no one else was there? That is the reality that greeted a handful of humans, including Jason Whitney, his wife Martha, and the remnants of a tribe of Native Americans in the year 2135. Their inexplicable abandonment had unexpected benefits: the eventual development of mental telepathy and other extrasensory powers, inner peace, and best of all, near-immortality. Now, five thousand years later, most of the remaining humans live a tranquil, pastoral life, leaving technological and religious exploration to the masses of robot servants who no longer have humans to serve. But the unexpected reappearance of Jason’s brother, who had teleported to the stars many years before, threatens to change everything yet again—for John Whitney is the bearer of startling information about where Earth’s population went and why—and the most disturbing news of all: They may finally be coming home again. Nominated for the Hugo Award when it first appeared in print more than forty years ago, Clifford D. Simak’s brilliant and thought-provoking A Choice of Gods has lost nothing of its power to astonish and intrigue. A masterwork of speculative fiction, intelligent and ingenious, it is classic Simak, standing tall among the very best science fiction that has ever been written.


Book Synopsis A Choice of Gods by : Clifford D. Simak

Download or read book A Choice of Gods written by Clifford D. Simak and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A handful of humans and a multitude of robots create a new society on an abandoned Earth in this novel by the Nebula Award–winning author of Way Station. What if you woke up one morning on Earth . . . and no one else was there? That is the reality that greeted a handful of humans, including Jason Whitney, his wife Martha, and the remnants of a tribe of Native Americans in the year 2135. Their inexplicable abandonment had unexpected benefits: the eventual development of mental telepathy and other extrasensory powers, inner peace, and best of all, near-immortality. Now, five thousand years later, most of the remaining humans live a tranquil, pastoral life, leaving technological and religious exploration to the masses of robot servants who no longer have humans to serve. But the unexpected reappearance of Jason’s brother, who had teleported to the stars many years before, threatens to change everything yet again—for John Whitney is the bearer of startling information about where Earth’s population went and why—and the most disturbing news of all: They may finally be coming home again. Nominated for the Hugo Award when it first appeared in print more than forty years ago, Clifford D. Simak’s brilliant and thought-provoking A Choice of Gods has lost nothing of its power to astonish and intrigue. A masterwork of speculative fiction, intelligent and ingenious, it is classic Simak, standing tall among the very best science fiction that has ever been written.


Living with the Gods

Living with the Gods

Author: Neil MacGregor

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2018-09-17

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 0241308305

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Following the award-winning BBC Radio 4 series, a panoramic exploration of peoples, objects and beliefs from the celebrated author of A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany 'Riveting, extraordinary ... tells the sweeping story of religious belief in all its inventive variety. The emphasis is not on our differences, but on shared spiritual yearnings' Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times, Books of the Year One of the central facts of human existence is that every society shares a set of beliefs and assumptions - a faith, an ideology, a religion - that goes far beyond the life of the individual. These beliefs are an essential part of a shared identity. They have a unique power to define - and to divide - us, and are a driving force in the politics of much of the world today. Throughout history they have most often been, in the widest sense, religious. Yet this book is not a history of religion, nor an argument in favour of faith. It is about the stories which give shape to our lives, and the different ways in which societies imagine their place in the world. Looking across history and around the globe, it interrogates objects, places and human activities to try to understand what shared beliefs can mean in the public life of a community or a nation, how they shape the relationship between the individual and the state, and how they help give us our sense of who we are. For in deciding how we live with our gods, we also decide how to live with each other. 'The new blockbuster by the museums maestro Neil MacGregor ... The man who chronicles world history through objects is back ... examining a new set of objects to explore the theme of faith in society' Sunday Times


Book Synopsis Living with the Gods by : Neil MacGregor

Download or read book Living with the Gods written by Neil MacGregor and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the award-winning BBC Radio 4 series, a panoramic exploration of peoples, objects and beliefs from the celebrated author of A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany 'Riveting, extraordinary ... tells the sweeping story of religious belief in all its inventive variety. The emphasis is not on our differences, but on shared spiritual yearnings' Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times, Books of the Year One of the central facts of human existence is that every society shares a set of beliefs and assumptions - a faith, an ideology, a religion - that goes far beyond the life of the individual. These beliefs are an essential part of a shared identity. They have a unique power to define - and to divide - us, and are a driving force in the politics of much of the world today. Throughout history they have most often been, in the widest sense, religious. Yet this book is not a history of religion, nor an argument in favour of faith. It is about the stories which give shape to our lives, and the different ways in which societies imagine their place in the world. Looking across history and around the globe, it interrogates objects, places and human activities to try to understand what shared beliefs can mean in the public life of a community or a nation, how they shape the relationship between the individual and the state, and how they help give us our sense of who we are. For in deciding how we live with our gods, we also decide how to live with each other. 'The new blockbuster by the museums maestro Neil MacGregor ... The man who chronicles world history through objects is back ... examining a new set of objects to explore the theme of faith in society' Sunday Times