World Religions, Civilizations and the Axial Age / Björn Wittrock -- Ideas and Interests: From Weber's Protestant Ethic to the Later Writings on the Sociology of Religion / Stephen Kalberg -- Karl Jaspers on Paradigmatic Individuals: A Complement to His Concept of the Axial Age and a Subtype of Weber's Concept of Charisma / Victor Lidz -- Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: Some Forerunners and Followers of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic Thesis in France and Brazil / Roberto Motta -- Images of Natural Order and Rulership by Measure, Weight and Number in the Hellenistic-Roman Era: A Study of Inter-Civilizational Encounters / Donald A. Nielsen -- The Pioneers of Islamicate Civilizational Analysis / Saïd Amïr Arjomand -- More (or Less) than a Civilizational "Formation"? Islam as the "Black Hole" of Comparative Civilizational Analysis / Armando Salvatore -- The Reception of Axial Age Legacies: Christianization and the Byzantinization of Russia / Yulia Prozorova -- The Forgotten Earth: Nature, World Religions, and Worldlessness in the Legacy of the Axial Age/Moral Revolution / Eugene Halton