Breaking the Spell Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

"Ambitious . . . an accessible account of what might be called the natural history of religion." The New Yorker

"How would a visitor from Mars dispassionately explain human religion? . . . My guess is that the result would be something like this crystal-clear, constantly engaging, and enjoyable new book." Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

"Rich and rewarding . . . the main business of the book is to give a scientific account of how religion may have developed among creatures such as us. . . . The product of an extremely bright mind." San Francisco Chronicle

"An elegant, sharp-minded essay on the need to study religion in a dispassionate way." The Economist

"Penetrating . . . a sharp synthesis of a library of evolutionary, anthropological and psychological research on the origin and spread of religion." Scientific American