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SOPHIA (2010) 49:157160
DOI 10.1007/s11841-009-0158-8
Review of David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism
Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0195183276, hb, 320pp.
Nathaniel David Rich
Published online: 18 December 2009# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Keywords Buddhism . Buddhist modernism . Modern Buddhism . Modernity. Rationalism . Romanticism . Religion . Science
David L. McMahans The Making of Buddhist Modernism is a thematic genealogy of the forms of Buddhism that have emerged out of an engagement with the dominant cultural and intellectual forces of modernity (6). Most significant for the historian of religions is that these emergent forms of Buddhism constitute a novel, historically unique form of Buddhism, whose enduring patterns and motifs McMahan broadly surveys here (21). By uncovering the historical roots of these modern forms of Buddhism and the novel contexts in which they bear fruit, McMahan is able to demonstrate convincingly that what many Westerners increasingly think of as Buddhism is a modern hybrid, whose roots are to be located as much in the European Enlightenment as in the Buddhas own (5). While emphasizing that Buddhist modernism is a cocreation of Asians, Europeans, and Americans, McMahan focuses on its various manifestations in the West in order to excavate the most significant modern western literature, concepts, ideologies, and practices that have intermingled with Buddhism to fashion a uniquely modernist form of the dharma, seeking to disentangle such Western sources of Buddhist modernism from their traditional sources in Asia (68). It is primarily an intellectual history, and is superb as a general introduction to modern Buddhism and its intellectual and cultural place in the West and modern Asia. It will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of religious studies, history of philosophy, modern intellectual history, postcolonial studies, and, in particular, modern Buddhist studies. Its general and thematic nature makes it ideal for classroom use, especially with upper-division undergraduates.
N. D. Rich (*)
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected]
158 N.D. Rich
In Chapter 1, McMahan outlines the general parameters of his study. For his purposes, modernity is defined as the gradually emerging social and intellectual world rooted in the Protestant Reformation, the scientific revolution, the European Enlightenment, Romanticism, and their successors...