Recommended for the first 9 chapters alone. They describe the founding basics in a clear way. The last few cover Buddhism in America. They provided some interesting insights into the Buddhism most people are exposed to today (lay person and meditation based), but can sometimes read like a list of names and places of all the different people and schools that came to states. Overall the book felt like a great introduction and it filled a lot of gaps in my knowledge. Comes with further recommended

A fine way to get an overall picture from the "dean of religion studies," and especially including its arrival to the West & the US in particular.

I wish I could give half stars. Not quite a 4 but definitely not a 3. Informative and well written. Some of the history of the western proliferation of Buddhism was too dry.

It’s wild how much is fit into this book, and how informative it is. At the end of the book it was mostly filled with different sects of Buddhism and branches and people who helped found it in different areas, so most of it was wordy names and dates, but the essence of what was being taught in that section still stood strong. A very good book for anyone looking to understand more about the history of buddhism and it’s many branches

This is a great introduction to Buddhism. It is very well structured and organized, and it is easy and fun to read. I would have loved a deeper philosophical analysis, and maybe more detailed history.

“‘Are you a god?’ They asked. ‘No.’‘Then what are you?’‘I am awake.’”If you’ve been on Goodreads within the last 12 hours, you can see I’ve added about four more books that relate to Buddhism. So you can say Novak and Smith did their job correctly. I began this book with pretty basic knowledge of Buddhism. Ever since learning about it, I’ve been interested in pursuing this religion further. This book did not disappoint. This book thoroughly dissects Buddhism in a way that anybody can understand,...

This is easily the best introduction to Buddhism I've ever read. It discusses the history of the Buddha and then gets into the basic teachings. Not much time is spent on this, and yet he covers all the basics: the four noble truths, the eightfold path, and even nirvana, anatta, the three marks of existence, dependent arising, and emptiness. The rest of the book discusses the verious Buddhist traditions around the world, with a special emphasis on American Buddhism. There is so much variety avail...

The first half of the book was quite helpful to me, serving as a basic introduction to Buddhist thought and practice. The second half, a history of the Buddhist movement into the West, was of little interest and so was largely skimmed. The bibliography is amazing and will be helpful in my future studies of Buddhism.

I liked the summary of Buddhist beliefs in the first half of this book, but the second half, especially the name-dropping section on lineages, was pretty much a slog to read. It did reference some of the books on my to-read list and give me some perspective on where they come from but otherwise it was a waste of time for a beginner to read the second half of this book.

Does a good job at explaining.

Okay book, I guess. It was assigned reading for the worst class I have ever taken so that's clouding my view of it.

This is an excellent introduction to Buddhism by Huston Smith, the author of the well-known The World's Religions, and Philip Novak, who was one of his students. The authors have written in a way that I found very accessible, not with the dryness of most textbooks. This small book (only 242 pages) contains a brief description of the life and legend of the Buddha, an overview of the important Buddhist teachings, some of the history of the beginnings in India and Asia, description of the kinds of

Good catalog of the differences between different Buddhist schools/sects. A bit too much minutia for most readers when it comes down to the different individuals that have influenced Buddhism in the West.

Very informative but difficult to read for long periods of time

Partially excellentPart of this book is an excellent introduction to Buddhism. Part of it is not. The first eight chapters are clear, concise and extraordinarily lucid. I have been looking for a long time for a really good introduction to Buddhism. Most of the books I've read either try to do too much or are too narrowly conceived. Huston Smith (not to be confused with Homer W. Smith who wrote Man and His Gods half a century ago) and Philip Novak do an admirable job of showing the reader exactly...

Frustratingly shallow and orientalist. Smith has an amazing knack for making the history of Buddhism out to be the history of white people reading about Buddhism. The first half of the book is an introduction to Buddhist thought and it's prominent sects. Smith assumes uncritically that there is a pre-sectarian Buddhism that we can draw upon that would allow us to say who the Buddha really was and what he taught. Smith expresses great affection for the person of the Buddha, but it's light on cont...

Very good book. The first half is fascinating and you can really learn a lot about the basics of Buddhism. The second part was irrelevant to me as it discusses Buddhism in the United States (extensively) and it’s just a really long list of names that’s nearly impossible to keep track of. Maybe those pages could have been used to expand a bit more on the first part? It’s good as an introduction.

A terrific book. The second half is a bit more drab but it's perfectly skimmable. Overall an excellent overview of Buddhism and its evolution.

Not much to say about this book. It strives to give people an easy and comprehensive introduction to Buddhism and does the job well. It could've detailed a bit more in the history of various schools within each of the three major traditions, as well as highlighting more of Buddhism's important figures, such as Nagarjuna, Dharmakirti and Vasubandhu; but it otherwise did as it says on the cover. Though given I know to varying degrees most of the information in here, it wasn't of much importance or...

Hoped for more techniques.Hoped for more techniques. Was a good history of Buddhism and it's spreading around the world. Worth reading it though...