And Mankind Created the Gods

“[A] detailed and convincing work of graphic scholarship.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Having read Religion Explained in preparation for this review, I found Béhé’s graphic novel format provided a more intuitive way to process Boyer’s complex ideas. The visual approach offered a fresh entry point into Boyer’s central, but often impenetrable, thesis: that religious ideas are not merely inherited as cultural constants but arise from the unique workings of the human mind.”

—Aaron Duggan Nova Religio

“If you’ve any interest at all in human beliefs and thought processes and are willing to spend the time to consider what’s on offer, And Mankind Created the Gods is going to be the source of hours of contemplation. … Monumental!”

—Frank Plowright The Slings & Arrows

“A terrific book that brings to life, in pictures, how scientific curiosity finds out why people invented gods and why so many still cling to them.”

—Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine

“Béhé portrays a consistently engaging conversation, masterfully distilling Boyer on why religions arise, persist, and compel and punctuating it with arresting images of the splendor and diversity of things religious.”

—Robert N. McCauley, author of Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not

Joseph Béhé has illustrated some twenty comic books, and he cowrites graphic novels with Amandine Laprun and Erwann Surcouf. The creative projects he has been involved in include Péché mortel, La péniche bleue, Pour l’amour de l’art, and Double Je.

Pascal Boyer is Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology and Psychology and Henry Luce Professor of Collective and Individual Memory at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of several books, including most recently Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create.