Angels: A History

Angels have played a significant role in spiritual life, with one in ten Britons claiming to have experienced their presence and one in three believing in a guardian angel. Peter Stanford's Angels explores the history, theology, and cultural significance of religious ideas about angels, asking if they are real, a manifestation of divine concern, or part of the poetry of religion.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 03 December 2020
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

An intriguing exploration of the many roles that angels have played in spiritual life.

- The Sunday Times : Nick Rennison

In a 2016 poll, one in ten Britons claimed to have experienced the presence of an angel, while one in three remain convinced that they have a guardian angel. These are huge numbers and mean that, on some counts, angels are doing better than God.

In the secular, sceptical, post-Christian world of the West, continuing faith in angels is both anomaly and comfort. But what exactly are angels, and why have so many in different times and contexts around the globe believed in them? What is their history and role in the great faiths and beyond their walls? Are angels something real, a manifestation of divine concern? Or part of the poetry of religion? And can they continue to illuminate a deeper truth about human existence and the cosmos?

These are not new questions. They have been asked over millennia, right up to the present day, as writer, journalist and broadcaster Peter Stanford explores in Angels, his latest investigation into the history, theology and cultural significance of religious ideas.

There is no better navigator through the space in which art, culture and spirituality meet than Peter Stanford. Cole Moreton, Independent on Sunday

Weight: 244g
Dimension: 128 x 196 x 45 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781473622098
Edition number: Illustrated ed