Moscow: Yurayt Publ., 2016, 456 p. The publication of another textbook on the history of religions is unlikely to surprise the scientific community today, much less excite the student community. At the same time, each time it is a significant event that simultaneously manifests and forms the "discursive space" of modern Russian religious studies. The textbook, published under the editorship of V. Y. Lebedev, Professor of the Department of Sociology at Tver State University, and A. M. Prilutsky, Professor of the Department of Sociology and Religious Studies at the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia1, is an integral part of this space. When writing the textbook, the authors tried to maintain a balance between tradition and innovation, without sacrificing "classics" to "modernity", and to form a holistic view of world religions, the most important national (ethnic) religions, as well as new religious movements. This setting has defined a kind of two-layered text, which is its characteristic feature. Following the classical historical approach, the authors consider various forms of religiosity-from primitive religions to developed theological systems, rightly pointing out that it is impossible and hardly necessary to describe all existing religions on the pages of a single textbook. Innovations include a special emphasis on the evolution of religion in the modern world - on such phenomena as religious modernism, fundamentalism, traditionalism, ecumenism, "post-confessional world", secularization, post-secularization, etc. (pp. 407-445). The textbook opens with the "religious studies minimum" - information about the subject and structure of religious studies, its historical and philosophical prerequisites and basic theories (pp. 9-37). For a more effective assimilation of the material, the text includes small sections:, 1. When the work on writing the textbook was already completed, the authors ' team suffered a loss: at the age of 66, the head of the Departme ... Читать далее