Huston Smith and Philip Novak in their 2003 book “Buddhism, A Concise Introduction” describe the history of development of Buddhism in the last section, “The Wheel Rolls West”: The New Migration; America the Buddha Full; Adaptations (The New Buddhism); America Starts Meditating 1 (The Ways of Zen); America Starts Meditating 2 (Tibetan Buddhism in Exile); and America Starts Meditating 3 (The Vipassana Movement).

I thought I would share their reading list for this section (Buddhism in the West and in America).  I’m currently reading the third book on the list and a very long time ago read the first one:

1) Rick Field’s “How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America”; 1992; Boston and London, Shambhala

2) Stephen Batchelor’s “The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture, 1994, Berkely, CA: Parallax Press

3) “The Faces of Buddhism in America”; edited by C. Prebish and K. Tanaka, 1998, Berkeley: The University of California Press; a collection of sixteen essays.

4) James Coleman’s “The New Buddhism: The Western Transformation of an Ancient Tradition; 2001; New York: Oxford University Press

5) Charles Prebish’s “Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America”; 1999; Berkeley: University of California Press

6) Richard Hughes Seager’s “Buddhism in America”; 1999; New York: Columbia University Press

7) Al Rapaport’s “Buddhism in America: Proceedings of the 1997 Conference on the Future of Buddhist Meditative Practices in the West”; 1998; Rutland, VT: Tuttle

8) Don Morreale’s “The Complete Guide to Buddhist America”; 1998; Boston and London: Shambhala

9) Martin Baumann’s “The Dharma Has Come West: A Survey of Recent Studies and Sources”; 1997; Journal of Buddhist Ethics 4