The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions
November 10th, 2005 | by Digvijay Lamba | 
The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions by Huston Smith
When looking for an introductory book that would cover a broad spectrum of religions, I was apprehensive of buying one that was either so detailed as to be boring or so superficial as to not serve my purpose.
The World’s Religions, however, manages to be just the right fit. It’s written in an interesting tone and covers most of the important aspects of every religion. More importantly, it discusses them with a structure that makes them easier to comprehend and you leave the book having understood rather than browsed through.
I am an Indian and I was naturally curious about his treatment of religions that have an Indian origin. Authors who do not belong to the culture they are writing about sometimes fail to do justice to their topic in the eyes those who belong to that culture. Smith’s treatment of Hinduism and Buddhism is, however, surprisingly concise and good. While, occasionaly, he does tend to offer opinions instead of facts but the style of writing makes it easy to distinguish one from the other.
His treatment of the religions I was unfamiliar with, Christianity, Judaism and Islam among others was also satisfactory in that it gives one a very good overview and is just thorough enough for one to realize which aspects would be interesting enough for further reading.
Be careful, however, that this is more an introduction to the principals and the ideas behind every religion and is NOT an account of either their historical origins and development or their current status and challenges. The only gripe I had from the book was it’s lack of pointers to resources where I could pursue those lines of study. Most of the sources he points to are, like his own work, works on ideas behind religions.
Highly recommended for a general reader who wants to have a broad understanding of the major religions.
Digvijay Singh Lamba
