From one of the worlds leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God, The Battle for God and The Spiral Staircase, comes a major new work a chronicle of one of the most important intellectual revolutions in world history and its relevance to our own time. In one astonishing, short period the ninth century BCE the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity into the present day Confucianism and Daoism in China Hinduism and Buddhism in India monotheism in Israel and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Historians call this the Axial Age because of its central importance to humanitys spiritual development.
