Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) was the Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor at the Divinity School and professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He was one of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and one of the world’s foremost interpreters of religious symbolism and myth. Eliade was the author of many works of scholarship and fiction, including A History of Religious Ideas and ten novels.

"No one has done so much as Mr. Eliade to inform literature students in the West about 'primitive' and Oriental religions. . . . Everyo ne who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision."--Martin E. Marty, New York Times Book Review

‘A History of Religious Ideas, volume 1 will arouse the interest of all historians of western religion, since it includes chapters on the religions of Canaan and Israel. However, the book must be read cover to cover if one wants to grasp the significance of its gigantic historical scope...Not only has the work unity through Eliade's authorship, but it lays the foundation of the history of religious' edifice of which he has been one of the principal architects.' --Kees W. Bolle, Church History.