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The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion, edited by Timothy Insoll, Oxford University Press: New York, 2011, xxvi + 1108 pp. ISBN: 9780199232444. US$150.00 (cloth)

based on Plato’s idea of paideia with its amalgam of the mimetic, mythic, and theoretic modes of knowledge, has sacrificed the latter two in favor of the theoretic, thus rendering the institution of the university with ‘little substantive purpose or meaning’ (p. 421). Richard Madsen, in his ‘Future of Transcendence: A Sociological Agenda,’ posits that we are now in a period ripe for new Axial breakthroughs, although these will not occur at the centers of power, but ‘might best begin at the interstices of the great economic political powers, in societies challenged by neoliberal globalization and made vulnerable by great power rivalries’ (p. 436). Madsen cites Taiwan and Korea where Buddhism and Confucianism are being refashioned ‘toward ecumenical openness’ as examples (p. 444). Finally, the volume concludes with Robert Bellah’s ‘The Heritage of the Axial Age: Resource or Burden?’ in which Bellah returns to the theme of the equivocal legacy of the Axial breakthrough, in this case the tension between the instrumental and the ethical inherent in the Axial Age’s notion of theoria. Although it doesn’t advertise itself as a festschrift, The Axial Age and Its Consequences feels like one and has all the strengths and weaknesses of one. On the one hand, the multiple perspectives these articles bring to the concept of the Axial Age are intellectually stimulating, but on the other, there is no attempt to synthesize the competing viewpoints of the various authors, especially in terms of the overarching themes I have indicated above. Thus the volume represents something of a missed opportunity to advance the discussion of the Axial Age and to make a strong case for its reintroduction into the discourse of Religious Studies. Nevertheless, The Axial Age and Its Consequences is a fascinating colloquy on the quintessential ‘grand narrative,’ the likes of which is exceedingly rare in today’s climate of postmodern hyper-specialization. I, for one, found the audacity of both Bellah’s initial project and the present volume refreshing, and for that reason well worth reading despite its flaws.