Buddhism/Bibliography

Works of scholars

Bechert, Heinz, & Gombrich, Richard, eds, The World of Buddhism: Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Society and Culture, Thames & Hudson, London, 1984: written by 11 scholars; includes nearly 300 illustrations, 82 in colour; arranged by country; "by far the most scholarly and comprehensive survey of Buddhism for the general reader." (Eliade, ed, Encyclopedia of Religion, Macmillan, 1987, volume 2, page 382)
Lopez, Donald S., Jr., Buddhism, Penguin/Story of Buddhism, Harper, San Francisco, 2001: arranged topically; rather impressionistic, not always making clear which Buddhists believe and practise which things

Cantwell, Cathy, Buddhism, Routledge, 2010
Gethin, Rupert, Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 1998; mainly on early Buddhism, which the author treats as the "foundations", always present in the background if not the foreground
Habito, Ruben L., Experiencing Buddhism, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 2005; Table of contents; treats the subject by analogy with a tree: the "root experience", the "trunk", and the "branches": Theravada, Zen, Pure Land, Tantra (mainly Tibetan) and Lotus (mainly Nichiren)
Harvey, Peter, Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge University Press, 1990
Keown, Damien, Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 1996
Klostermaier, Klaus K., Buddhism, Oneworld Pub, 1999; Introduction
Mitchell, Donald S., Buddhism, 2nd ed, Oxford University Press, 2008; review of 1st ed in Philosophy East and West, volume 54
Olson, Carl D., The Different Paths of Buddhism, Rutgers University Press, 2005
Prebish, Charles S., & Keown, Damien, Introducing Buddhism, 2nd ed, Routledge, 2010
Robinson, Richard H., revised by Johnson, Willard L., and Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Buddhist Religions, 5th ed, Wadsworth, Belmont, California, 2004: the s is new to this edition; "perhaps the most popular of all introductory textbooks on Buddhism" (Routledge Encyclopedia of Buddhism, page 629); review (Journal of the American Academy of Religion, volume 74, number 3, September 2006, pages 765-70) also makes brief comments on several other books in this list

Chapter 8 in Penguin Handbook of the World's Living Religions, 3rd edition, 2010
Kitagawa & Cummings, Buddhism & Asian History, Macmillan, 1989: selected articles from Encyclopedia of Religion, 15 vols, Macmillan, New York, 1987
Encyclopedia of Buddhism, 2 vols, Macmillan, 2004: written by over 200 scholars
Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Routledge, 2007: written by 23 scholars

Williams, Buddhism, 8 vols, Routledge, 2005: reprints of papers by many scholars, 1958-2003

Morgan, Path of the Buddha, Ronald Press, New York, 1956; reprint Motilal, Delhi, distributed by Wisdom Books: the editor travelled round the East asking leading Buddhists to recommend contributors; he ended up with 7 Japanese professors, 3 Theravada monks and a Tibetan official
Lopez, Buddhist Scriptures, Penguin Classics, 2004: a broad selection of Buddhist literature