World Religions, Western Traditions. 2nd ed.

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“Once upon a time, many in the West regarded religion as a kind of
cultural fossil. Esthetically rich, anthropologically intriguing? Yes.
But relevant to today’s hard-nosed world of business and politics? ...
Nobody has asked me that question since 1979. In that year, the Shah of
Iran was deposed in an Islamic Revolution ... To understand the modern
world, we now realize, we need to take into account the meanings that
its traditional religions have for their adherents.”

The above is an abridged segment from Willard G. Oxtoby’s
introduction to this highly acclaimed two-volume set, which first
appeared in 1996. Since the fall of the Shah of Iran, the world has seen
the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, Buddhist nationalism in Sri
Lanka, Muslim nationalism across the world, and Christian fundamentalism
in the United States.

These expanded second editions now include information on the Baha’i
and New Age faiths and some very timely in-depth analysis of Islamic
philosophy and theology. In Western Traditions, Mahmoud M. Ayoub
contributes a chapter on Islam, Alan F. Segal writes about Judaism, and
Oxtoby contributes a chapter each on Christianity and the Zoroastrian
tradition, and two chapters about the impact of major religions on the
smaller indigenous faiths in Africa and the New World. Eastern
Traditions gives us chapters on the Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, and
other religions. Both volumes are meticulously researched and very
readable. The chapters are written by world-class experts and supported
with dozens of black-and-white photographs and maps, as well as scores
of sidebars that contain fragments of sacred writings or glossaries of
key terms.

The World Religions set is an invaluable resource for those who want to
understand the history and complex theologies of the world’s many
faiths.