Search for Meaning: Exploring Religions of the World

William Glassman is a psychology professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute in Toronto.

In a multicultural world, it is inevitable that one will encounter
others whose religious beliefs are different from one’s own.
Understanding those differences, and even trying to find a common
ground, can be challenging. Search for Meaning provides a concise
introduction for those who wish to learn about the diversity of world
religions. In part, it is also meant as a companion volume to the
BBC/Time-Life film series “The Long Search,” and originated as a
series of related lectures.

Understanding how believers experience each of the world’s major
religions would be a challenge in a multivolume work; providing a useful
perspective in a scant 200 pages is even more difficult and, of
necessity, involves selective omissions. Despite this hurdle, Gualtieri
is largely successful in providing an overview of the basic elements of
nine major religious traditions, from Hinduism to Islam. In doing so, he
speaks directly yet respectfully, and occasionally with a sense of true
empathy.

Given its size and focus as a film guide, the book is generally
effective. Its biggest limitation is the complete absence of references,
either for works quoted or for further reading, and the absence of any
index. While understandable in a lecture format, the omission is
significant in a finished book. Nonetheless, given its readability (with
or without seeing the film series), Search for Meaning can start the
reader’s own “long search.”