The brilliant but turbulent life of a public intellectual who transformed the social sciences
Robert Bellah (1927-2013) was one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century. Trained as a sociologist, he crossed disciplinary boundaries in pursuit of a greater comprehension of religion as both a cultural phenomenon and a way to fathom the depths of the human condition. A Joyfully Serious Man is the definitive biography of this towering figure in modern intellectual life, and a revelatory portrait of a man who led an adventurous yet turbulent life.
Drawing on Bellah''s personal papers as well as in-depth interviews with those who knew him, Matteo Bortolini tells the story of an extraordinary scholarly career and an eventful and tempestuous life. He describes Bellah''s exile from the United States during the hysteria of the McCarthy years, his crushing personal tragedies, and his experiments with sexuality. Bellah understood religion as
