An Atheist's History of Belief: Understanding Our Most Extraordinary Invention

Forget Dawkins or Hitchens, this is a refreshingly unbiased non-believer's account of WHAT humans have believed across the ages, and WHY.      What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits? And why has belief thrived ever since, leading us to invent heaven and hell, sin and redemption, and above all, gods?     Religion reflects our deepest hopes and fears; whether you are a believer or, like Matthew Kneale, a non-believer who admires mankind's capacity to create and to imagine, it has shaped our world. And as our dreams and nightmares have changed over the millennia, so have our beliefs -- from shamans to Aztec priests, from Buddhists to Christians: the gods we created have evolved with us.      Belief is humanity's most epic invention. It has always been our closest companion and greatest consolation. To understand it is to better understand ourselves.

History

KNEALE, Matthew

World

Vintage Books

In 1857 when Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe. The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson believes the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania. His traveling partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, unbeknownst to Wilson, is developing a sinister thesis about the races of men. 
Meanwhile, an aboriginal in Tasmania named Peevay recounts his people's struggles against the invading British, a story that begins in 1824, moves into the present with approach of the English passengers in 1857, and extends into the future in 1870. These characters and many others come together in a storm of voices that vividly bring a past age to life.

English Passengers

Gardners Books

London in the summer of 1849. With a deadly cholera epidemic threatening, young engineer Joshua Jeavons is convinced it is his mission to save the capital and reform its festering sewers. Meanwhile in his dometsic life he is troubled by the baffling coldness shown towards him by his beautiful bride, Isobella. As he struggles to win her round, he works feverishly on a revolutionary drainage plan. This is his dream, his dazzling vision of the future: a London free of effluent. Then a sudden and mystifying disappearance throws his whole life upside-down. He is forced to embark on a harrowing search, which plucks him from his respectable life and throws him into a London previously unknown to him. A netherworld of slum-dwellers, pickpockets and scavengers of the sewers. He will find it is this very world that holds unexpected answers to the mysteries that surround him.

Sweet Thames

Literature & Fiction

Penguin Uk

Contemporary

Anchor / Random House

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. 1st Edition Dust Jacket First Edition

Hamish Hamilton

When We Were Romans

When We Were Romans is a haunting psychological novel and another masterful work from the author of the prize–winning English Passengers.Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man of his family. He watches over his mother and his willful little sister Jemima. He is the one who keeps order, especially when his mother decides they must leave their life in England behind because of threats from Lawrence's father. But their new life in Rome does not go as planned. Short of money and living off of his mother's old friends—all who seem to doubt her story—Lawrence soon realizes that things are not what they seem.

Dramas & Plays

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

London: Picador

Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family. He carefully watches over his willful little sister, Jemima, and his mother, Hannah. When Hannah becomes convinced that their estranged father is stalking them, the family flees London and heads for Rome, where Hannah lived happily as a young woman. For Lawrence, fascinated by stories of popes and emperors, Rome is an adventure. Though they are short of money, and move from home to home, staying with his mother’s old friends, little by little their new life seems to be taking shape. But the trouble that brought them to Italy will not quite leave them in peace. Narrated in Lawrence’s perfectly rendered voice, When We Were Romans powerfully evokes the emotions and confusions of childhood — the triumphs, the jealousies, the fears, and the love. Even as everything he understands is turned upside down, Lawrence remains determined to keep his family together, viewing the world from a perspective that is at once endearingly innocent and preternaturally wise.

Literary

Picador

Matthew Kneale brings his mastery of storytelling to our present morally ambiguous world. Set in lands ranging from England to China, South America, the Middle East, and Africa, these powerful stories follow ordinary people as they try to survive and make sense of their worlds. Kneale transports readers across continents in a nanosecond, reaching to the heart of faraway societies with rare perceptiveness.

Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance

Short Stories & Anthologies

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Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

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Books by KNEALE, Matthew

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by KNEALE, Matthew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

An Atheist's History of Belief: Understanding Our Most Extraordinary Invention

English Passengers

Sweet Thames

English Passengers

English Passengers

When We Were Romans

When We Were Romans

When We Were Romans

Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance

Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance