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PREBISH, Charles S., and TANAKA, Kenneth K., eds. The Faces of Buddhism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
The Faces of Buddhism in America is a collection of papers from a symposium entitled "Buddhism in America: An Expanding Frontier" from the fall of 1994 (p. 3). The nineteen contributors are the leading scholar-practitioners in the field who together create a well-balanced volume about questions in the tradition that point toward the future of American Buddhism. This book offers an historical approach to the phenomenon of American Buddhism, but also provides questions and ideas from which to continue American Buddhist Studies in the next millenium. The collection is dedicated to the late Yehan Numata (1897-1997), the founder of Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (Buddhist Promoting Foundation), which distributes The Teaching of the Buddha free of charge.
The contents of the book are divided into two parts. Part One: "American Buddhist Traditions in Transition" includes the major Buddhist organizations in the United States, such as Chinese Buddhism, Shin Buddhism, Japanese Zen, Nichiren Shoshu, Tibetan Buddhism, Korean Buddhism, Vietnamese Buddhism, and Theravada Buddhism. It is well balanced in geographaphical scope and organization. However, these Buddhist...