then asked to see. It would seem that just as his eyes, though unimpaired, are unable to see, so the will, though unimpaired, is unable to believe. On Luther’s view, the issue becomes how the impaired will itself, lacking the ability to appropriate divine grace, can do precisely this by trusting Christ; here the relevant analogy is that of a blind man who is asked to see” (p. 221). This passage exhibits that the book is written in a lively and persuasive fashion, and Chapter 4, “Shinran and Calvin,” takes the parallel between Japanese Buddhism and Reformation Christianity further, with the suggestion that the second-generation Protestant Jean Calvin (1509–1564) is a better fit for comparison with Shinran, both of whom advocated a “grace alone” (p. 239) paradigm of salvation. The principal difference between the two theologians is “Shinran’s belief in universal- ism versus Calvin’s belief in particularism” (p. 329). This is a fascinating study that demonstrates the value of well-informed and judicious comparison, which is deserving of a wide readership. CAROLE M. CUSACK University of Sydney ROBERT N. BELLAH: Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011; pp. xxvii + 746. Robert Bellah was eighty-four at the time of publication of this vast, sprawling, and deeply interesting book, and it is a delight to read the work of a master of the study of religion from a social scientific perspective at the height of his powers. The “Preface” indicates Bellah’s awareness that the type of “big history” (p. xi) that he is doing may prove unpopular with a wide range of readers. Nevertheless, he asserts its relevance and importance, citing with favour David Christian’s Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (2004) and Daniel Lord Smail’s On Deep History and the Brain (2008). Bellah, like these two authors, rejects the notion that human “history” begins with writing, and argues for a history that stretches from the Big Bang to the present. That time-span makes Bellah’s selected period, from the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, seem both modest and manageable. Bellah asserts the compatibility of evolutionary science and humanistic history, and focuses on “the behavioral and symbolic aspects of evolution, which build on genetic capacities but are themselves not genetically controlled, as it is there that we will probably find most of the resources for religion — cultural developments from biological begin- nings” (p. xii). Chapters 1 and 2 establish the parameters of the study, which draws upon the ideas of Emile Durkheim, Alfred Schutz, and Clifford Geertz, and cognitive developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner. Bellah ascribes great significance to narrative, which may form a bridge between iconic and enactive representations and conceptual representations. His sketch of evolution includes a section on social bonding, which includes discussions of the importance of parental care and play. In Bellah’s theory, “ritual is the primordial form of serious play in human evolutionary history — ritual . . . rather than religion, which is something that grows out of the implications of ritual in a variety of ways that never leave ritual entirely behind” (p. 92). He notes that John Huizinga’s classic Homo Ludens (1938) understood myth 614 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY © 2012 The Authors Journal of Religious History © 2012 Religious History Association