Comprising 60 essays, the volume focuses on communities rather than beliefs, symbols, or rites. It is organized into six sections corresponding to the major living religious traditions: the Indic cultural region, the Buddhist/Confucian, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim regions, and the African cultural region. In each section an introductory essay discusses the social development of that religious tradition historically. The other esasys cover the basic social facts - the community's size location, organizational and pilgrimage centers, authority figures, patterns of governance, major subgroups and schisms - as well as issues regarding boundary maintenance, political involvment, role in providing cultrual identity, and encounters with modernity.