Prayer: A History – The Landmark Work on Spiritual Practice and Lives Changed Through Art and Literature Across Faiths

by Carol Zaleski, Philip Zaleski

This landmark work presents prayer in all its richness and variety throughout history, across traditions, and around the globe. In a thorough and fascinating look at this spiritual practice, two of today’s most versatile and admired authorities on religion probe the language and fruits of prayer, its controversies, and its prospects for the future. With a focus on extraordinary stories of lives changed by prayer and on great works of literature and art inspired by it, Prayer: A History promises to be the standard on the subject for readers of all faiths.

Genres: Religion, Spirituality, History, Prayer, Nonfiction, Theology

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Za...

Excerpts from The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings - J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield available here:

http://chronicle.com/article/Oxfords-...

http://us.macmillan.com/excerpt?isbn=...

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes to self:
*an action that communicates between human and divine realms.
"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers." Oscar Wilde
"Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."Kierkegaard

Old pond
A frog leaps in
Plash! Basho -a Buddhist meditation. Buddhist teachings of suchness. (?)

First to pray? Neanderthals-flowers on grave, cave paintings.

Prayer is ancient-to prehuman times. It is a long line. We honor and consider those who come before us and acknowledge that we are merely part of this line, a stream of humanity. As we pray ,read the Bible, do yoga-it is part of this continuation.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. A sort of strange tour of the history of prayer through the lens of many traditions. In trying to accomplish everything, though, Zaleski hasn't really accomplished that much. The book is interesting enough, but doesn't take faith (as opposed to spirituality) seriously enough to make the book go anywhere. It's basically what the NY Times would do if it was tasked with writing such a history. Well written, but in the end too disinterested with the subject and interested with the writing itself to do what you would hope it would do.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did this take me way to long to finish? Yes. Do I think that the Zaleski's love a sentence too long for its own good? Yes. Did I fall asleep while reading it three different times? Yes.

Was this also a five star book, going by literally any metric of quality other than "zippy"? Also yes. Because if you are like me and you like to know everything about everything and you don't know where your personality ends and the fun facts begin, this is a great book. It takes the practice of prayer, smashes it, and then examines it on the molecular level. It looks at its many components, and the forms that stay consistent across differing religions, time periods, and people groups. It looks at the stages of prayer, the categories of people who pray, the types of prayer, and types of expression. There's a reason a full tenth of the book is citations, because it talks about everything from the Mithratic mysteries to Vermeer to the efficacy of Native prayer-dances to Supreme Court cases to the practices of Sri Ramakrishna.

My brain is now very full and very stressed. Please pray for it.

[Ross Heinricy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look at prayer from a historical aspect, differing religious practices and principles and even prayer in art and music. I will be going back through this book over time, but over all very captivating, inviting and interesting. I even bought a print on Angelus - a painting about prayer!

[Milo Peregrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read, but for a history of prayer it, unfortunately, fell deeply into a Christocentric perspective.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't TELL you how much I wanted to like this book. The co-author is one of my favorite writers in The Christian Century, and prayer is a central life topic for me.

But Philip loves to write long, wordy sentences, and long paragraphs. The book could use a tighter editorial hand.

My real problem came at the front end of the book, where a few chapters left me so cold I nearly left the book unfinished. I skipped ahead, and finally found some traction as he approached Christian, Muslim and more particular and unusual religious/prayer practices, like Voodoo.

Maybe part of the problem is all of this is very familiar territory for me. I may be too critical of the wide sweep of this book, but in general, it didn't do for me what I hoped: inspire, instruct, move.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

The nice thing about this book is that it shares lots of little biographies of great people in the world of faith history. The authors present material from several various faith perspectives, which allows the reader to get a bigger picture of how prayer affects humanity.

The not so nice thing is that it was kind of long and hard to keep your attention on it for more than a few good pages at a time.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

[http://mllesays.blogspot.com/2007/03/...]

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this along side The Battle for God

[Ellen Allerton · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no other book that "defines" prayer so elegantly and thoroughly.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this.