Holy Places: How Pilgrimage Changed the World

(Hardback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This year, as they have for millennia, people will set out on pilgrimages. From Mecca to the Outer Hebrides, each of these journeys will be filled with spiritual and personal meaning - and as well as political statements, cultural battlegrounds and contested stories. Holy Places follows the trail of pilgrimage from the humble origins of the greatest faiths to sites of modern devotion and celebrity. In Rome, pilgrimage shaped the city's streets in ways still visible today. Muxima in Angola testifies to the violent blending of Christianity and indigenous tradition. Tai Shan has helped generations of Chinese leaders cement power, while pilgrims to the Ganges must grapple with modern pollution as they seek spiritual purity in its waters. Pilgrimages have meant the start of faiths, the birth of cultures and the end of civilizations. Holy Places wrestles with the complex histories and contemporary endurance of one of our most fundamental human urges.

Reviews

A breathtaking journey through the history of pilgrimage, offering a vivid exploration of how sacred sites have shaped societies, cultures, and political landscapes across the globe. A truly essential work for understanding the intersection of faith, history, and the human spirit -- Reza Aslan, author * No God But God *
In Holy Places, Kathryn Hurlock luminously sets pilgrimage in a global context, describing nineteen pilgrimage centres in every continent, and explaining the universal attraction of journeying from one's everyday setting to a distant and numinous place -- John Barton, author * A History of the Bible: A Book and Its Faiths *
Wonderful. Full of fascinating facts and insights about these extraordinary routes. And if you're a pilgrim yourself, even if only at heart, it'll get you dreaming about reaching for those boots and going for a long special walk -- Victoria Finlay, author * Fabric *
An ambitious, wide-ranging and fascinating account of some of the greatest pilgrimage sites. What emerges is the incredible variety of this constantly evolving phenomenon. Pilgrimage might be imagined to be fading away in our secular age, but the opposite is true -- Michael Wood, author of In Search of the Dark Ages

Author Bio

Kathryn Hurlock is Head of the History Research Centre and Reader in Medieval History at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of Britain, Ireland and the Crusades and Medieval Welsh Pilgrimage, among others. She has featured on BBC Breakfast and You're Dead To Me and in the Independent.