The Complete Idiots Guide to World Religions (3rd edition) by Brandon Toropov & Luke Buckles

Fits the Bill Perfectly

Some people have criticized this book for not having enough detail. Well, this book is just intended to be an introduction to a number of the world's great religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto.

The descriptions are short (20-40 pages) and full of enough detail to give the reader a useful outline of the religion's teachings. For more detail on a particular religion, I would recommend the 'Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam (or Buddhism, or Judaism, etc.)

I was searching for a textbook to use for my school's new 9 weeks-long program on world religions. This book fits the bill perfectly - there is enough here to get us off to a very good start towards discussing any of these religions.

Less useful are the sections on similar ideas that span all world religions and the section on ancient and (basically) dead religions such as worship of the Ancient Egyptian and Greek gods.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: World Religions.

Reviewed on March 23, 2005