This section contains 1,741 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |
WHEATLEY, PAUL (1921–1999) was a professor at the University of Chicago who specialized in comparative urbanism and historical urban geography. If ever there was a contemporary scholar outside the field of religious studies itself who made a persuasive and elegant case for relating the study of religion to comparative worldviews and complex social processes, it was Paul Wheatley. His magisterial book The Pivot of the Four Quarters: A Preliminary Enquiry into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City still stands as a model for comparative studies of the social and religious dimensions of traditional urban settlements. The excellence of this book can be attributed in part to Wheatley's extraordinary linguistic abilities, his insightful handling of primary texts, and his elegant application and testing of his theories on the nature of the city, social stratification, and the religious imagination. Wheatley came to this achievement through his...
This section contains 1,741 words (approx. 6 pages at 300 words per page) |