This book by Rick Fields, a rich resource for East–West dialog, was published in 1981 and fulfills the need for a comprehensive historical examination of the current phenomenon of Buddhism. The subtitle is an adequate description of the book, which shows that Buddhism in the United States is much more than simply a fruit of the hippy culture of the 1960s. It has a long thread which extends back to Buddha himself, and is closely intertwined with the development of philosophy, art, culture and spirituality in American history.

The book begins with an excellent resume of the life and thought of Shakyamuni Buddha and the origins of Buddhism in India, as well as its spread to other parts of the Orient. It continues by expressing the first missionary endeavors of Buddhism into Greece and Egypt in the fourth century BCE. It delineates the influences Buddhism had on the philosophy and art of the West and speaks of the possible influences even on Christianity itself, particularly through the Gnostic thought which was still prevalent in the early centuries of the Church.

The efforts of colonizers from Portugal, Holland and England were first directed toward the extermination of native influences and religious thought and the imposition of Christianity according to European standards. In due time, however, even the colonizers realized that the way to subjugate the East was by making use of their native ways. This led to a counter-influence of Eastern thought on the Europeans, to the extent that some, such as William Jones of England, strove to learn the language and thought of the Indian people and translated many of the Hindu and Buddhist writings into English.

These translations and other works found fertile soil in the New World of America, where such men as Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others assimilated them into their own thought and spread them to many others. This culminated in the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875, and the ever-widening influence it had on many.

The story of the mutual exchange between the East and the West is found in the immigration of Chinese laborers for the California gold mines, the Japanese for cultural purposes after the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry, and the many Americans who went to the Orient for many and varied purposes, only to become influenced by the thought and culture of those ancient lands.

Only as a result of the eventual effect all this had on American culture itself, did this gradually open into a more explicit acceptance of Buddhism as an American phenomenon. All of these served to continue an unbroken lineage which is so important in Buddhist tradition, and which would reach on to such men as D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, Thomas Merton, Philip Kapleau and many others.

The book is well written, interesting in its narrative, full in details, and also expressing an adequate formulation of not only history but also Buddhist doctrines and practice. It demonstrates the extent to which any area of religious thought is best expressed in and through those persons who both believed and practiced the tradition. The book is a valuable contribution to any collection on religious thought and on Eastern religions in particular.