The first authoritative volume on the totality of Buddhism in the West, Westward Dharma establishes a comparative and theoretical perspective for considering the profusion of Buddhist traditions, schools, centers, and teachers that has developed outside of Asia. Leading scholars from North America, Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia explore the plurality and heterogeneity of practices that characterize Buddhism in the West.
The recent dramatic growth of Western Buddhism is accompanied by an expansion of issues of Buddhist concern. The contributors to this volume treat such topics as the broadening spirit of egalitarianism; the increasing emphasis on the psychological, as opposed to the purely religious, nature of practice; scandals within Buddhist movements; the erosion of the distinction between professional and lay Buddhists; Buddhist settlement in Isr'l; the history of Buddhism in internment camps; the repackaging of Zen for the West; and women's Dharma in the West. The interconnections of historical and theoretical approaches in the volume make it a rich, multifaceted resource.


Westward Dharma, Edited by Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann, University of California Press, 425 pages, $21.95

Charles S. Prebish is Professor of Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University and author and editor of numerous works, including Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America (California, 1999), A Survey of Vinaya Literature (1994), and American Buddhism (1979). He is coeditor of The Faces of Buddhism in America (California, 1998) and the electronic Journal of Buddhist Ethics. Martin Baumann is Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland, and research fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Hannover University, Germany. He is the author of Diaspora: Hindus and Trinidad (2002), Migration, Religion, Integration (2000), and Deutsche Buddhisten: Geschichte and Gemeinschaften (1993). He is also coeditor of Religions fo the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices (2002). Prebish and Buamann are coeditors of the electronic Journal of Global Buddhism (http: //www.globalbuddhism.org).