Full Description
Created by two of the field's leading experts, this unique introduction to international religious demography outlines the challenges in interpreting data on religious adherence, and presents a contemporary portrait of global religious belief.
Offers the first comprehensive overview of the field of international religious demography - detailing what we know about religious adherents around the world, and how we know it
Examines religious freedom and diversity, including agnostics and atheists, on a global scale, highlighting trends over the past 100 years and projecting estimates for the year 2050
Outlines the issues and challenges related to definitions, taxonomies, sources, analyses, and other techniques in interpreting data on religious adherence
Considers data from religious communities, censuses, surveys, and scholarly research, along with several in-depth case studies on the global Muslim population, religion in China, and the religious demography of recently created Sudan and South Sudan
Argues against the belief that the twentieth-century was a 'secular' period by putting forward new evidence to the contrary
Provides resources for measuring both qualitatively and quantitatively important data on the world's religious situation in the twenty-first century
Contents
List of Figures xiii
List of Tables xiv
Foreword xix
Acknowledgments xxiv
Introduction 1
Part I Overview 7
1 Global Religious Populations, 1910-2010 9
2 Regional Religious Populations, 1910-2010 81
3 Religious Diversity 93
4 Projecting Religious Populations, 2010-50 111
Part II Data and Methods 133
5 Defining Religion and Religious Identity 135
6 Religious Demography as an Emerging Discipline 143
7 Major Sources and Collections of Data 163
8 Analyzing Data on Religion 190
9 Dynamics of Change in Religious Populations 205
Part III Case Studies 227
10 Estimating Changes in the Global Muslim Population 229
11 Factors Driving Change in the Global Muslim Population 258
12 Estimating China's Religious Populations 286
13 Assessing Religious Populations in the Sudans 313
14 Migration and Religious Diasporas 321
Conclusion 333
Appendix: World Religions by Country 337
Glossary 346
Index 360
