Textbooks and Inspection Copies

Textbooks are available as inspection copies. Inspection copies (which may be delivered electronically) as books designed for undergraduate courses can be requested from the book's homepage on this site. Other books not displaying the Inspection Copy option may be supplied for review as course texts; please contact with with details of your course.

AfroDiasporic & Indigenous Collection Textbooks
Islamic Studies Collection Textbooks
South & East Asia Collection Textbooks

Interactive Books

If you have adopted one of the interactive texts on this site and your institution subscribes to one of the collections with a premium option, you are able to to register as the moderator for the course you will be teaching and exploit the features of the platform. Once authorized in this role, you will be able to create a private annotation group, invite students to join and manage group membership. When engaging with a text, your readers can associate their annotations with those groups of which they are a member. In addition, moderators can develop their own suite of resources from any of the material that is included in their institution's subscription. All you need to do is identify which chapters, whole books or journal articles that should be included and we will create a unique environment for your course. You can also import non-Equinox material (for which you have permission to do so), such as images, multimedia content, and so forth. Contact Sarah Lee (slee@equinoxpub.com) to discuss.

In addition to the books in the Religion in 5 Minutes series, all our future textbooks and reference books as well as certain monographs, will be available in this interactive format and we will be converting previously published textbooks. Books currently in this format are:

A Student's Guide to the History and Philosophy of Yoga
Exploring Hindu Philosophy
Levantine Entanglements: Cultural Productions, Long-Term Changes and Globalizations in the Eastern Mediterranean
Muslim Identities, 2nd edition
Myth Theorized
The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women
The Quran: A New, Annotated Translation
Religions of a Single God

Religion in 5 Minutes Series

Volumes in this series are each an opportunity for novice readers to benefit from the expertise of scholars, all addressing common questions about everything from Hinduism and Buddhism to Paganism and Indigenous religion. Students and general readers will find here questions that they might ask – What is the oldest religion? Do all religions have scriptures? – all answered in a readable manner. Each chapter includes links to chapters on related topics as well as (very short) lists of recommended reading. The interactive editions of these books allow (password controlled) reading groups to post comments and allow the sharing of resources from this platform or links to outside sources.

The foundational book, Religion in Five Minutes, like all books in the series, can stand alone or be used alongside more conventional textbooks on all types of introductory courses. The coverage of these books is iterative so the questions and responses in any one volume, particularly Religion in Five Minutes, are likely to be helpful to students encountering topics raised in the other volumes or anywhere else. For that reason, the volume, Religion in Five Minutes, is included in each of the Collections. Thus, the first three volumes -- Religion in Five Minutes, Buddhism in Five Minutes and Hinduism in Five Minutes -- are included in the South & East Asia Collection and the AfroDiasporic & Indigenous Collection includes Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes plus Religion in Five Minutes.

Forthcoming books in this format will cover African Diaspora Religions, Ancient Religions, Atheism, Christianity, Islamic Studies, Judaism, Paganism alongside volumes on the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible, The U.S. Constitution, and Yoga

Reviews

Religion in Five Minutes is an excellent collection of the questions so many people have but never dare to ask—journalists, policymakers, practitioners, and, yes, also students of religion. The answers given by well-known experts in the field are straight to the point, candid, and accessible. Browsing through this book will make readers eager to spend more than five minutes on the fascinating and enigmatic thing we call 'religion'.
Kocku von Stuckrad, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

Religion in Five Minutes presents a new way to gain a comprehensive grasp of the complex and fascinating field of Religious Studies. By answering 81 sincere and direct questions of students in short, eloquent texts devoid of jargon, the book makes decades of academic research and theory accessible to everyone. Here is a text that will not only be very useful to beginning students but will also help scholars and researchers explain their work more precisely and effectively.
Naomi Goldenberg, Professor of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Ottawa

At last! At last! The perfect resource I never dreamed of having in one convenient place has come along. I get dozens of these questions each time I teach a class, and now I have an informative, scholarly, reliable source that also happens to be thoroughly inviting to students. I plan to assign this book in both introductory and more advanced courses. This is hands down a ‘must-have’ for every Religious Studies department but, more importantly, every school, hospital or healthcare center, government office and definitely newsroom should have a copy on hand. Beautifully executed and brilliantly conceived, this is so much more than simply a handbook. Each article also provides a robust springboard into higher-level meta-conversations about why students are asking these particular questions and how and why they (and many others) frame ‘religion’ in the manner that they do.
Sarah McFarland Taylor, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Northwestern University

Pagan Religions in Five Minutes: Forthcoming 2024