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Vedanta for the West (Religion in North America) | 
| Author: Carl, T. Jackson
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $52.95
Buy New: $52.94
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New (16) Used (13) from $11.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1963119
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 204
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 025333098X
Dewey Decimal Number: 294.5550973
EAN: 9780253330987
ASIN: 025333098X
Publication Date: January 1, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Book is brand new, and has never been opened. Thousands of satisfied customers!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
"Vedanta for the West" examines the Ramakrishna movement, the very first and in many ways the most important Asian religious group to appear in America. Founded on the teachings of the nineteenth-century Bengali visionary Sri Ramakrishna, the movement was brought to the United States in 1893 by Swami Vivekananda, a disciple of Ramakrishna. Although its membership is small, the movement has exercised a significant influence in the last hundred years, promoting Hindu reform and revival in India and increasing public awareness of Hinduism through its Vedanta societies in the United States and Europe. An important history of the oldest form of Hinduism in America, this book sheds new light on the progress and adaptation of Eastern spirituality in the West.
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| Customer Reviews:
Good General History Of The Ramakrishna Movement In The USA April 23, 2001
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
One hundred years after the Vivekananda'a talks in Chicago at the World's Parliament of Religions in 1893, this book appears to trace and evaluate the spread of the Ramakrishna / Vedanta Movement in the USA. While he does no more than touch briefly on what the movement is doing presently in India, Jackson illustrates the peculiar forces at work in India and the US at the turn of the century that were so propitious to the movement's beginning. He shows the reasons for its early growth while so many other eastern religious imports languished and died, and sketches out the many causes of its later successes and failures. He does not go deeply into the theology or spirituality of Vedanta, but gives a brief summary of the lives of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and their general teachings, and he contrasts the movement with the more modern USA phenomena of Krishna Consciousness and Transcendental Meditation. He suggests some of the strengths and weaknesses that will affect its future success. Most of the history of the movement has been written from within; it is good to have an outsider and a professional historian give his interpretation and present the various sides of the conflicts that have arisen. I think he presents an informative, objective, and balanced picture.
Comprehensive study June 14, 2000
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Written by a professor of history at the University of Texas, this medium sized book tells the story of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda movement from it's asian and American preconditions, through it's origination, through it's first twenty difficult and upheaveled years up to the present time (ca. 1993). It also deals with questions like, how the organisation compares to other hindu groups in America, what the typical member looks like (, although this is based on too spare materials,), then what of the movements teachings appeals to western people etc. Highlights are topics like schisms, or the exclusion of of a swami from the organisation, who was a direct disciple of Ramakrishna. Then the many deaths of hartatacks of swamis, even one bombing. Although a scientific book, it reads nearly as easy as a novel. The number of facts Jackson has collected is amasing. Since he knows so much about the movement he can afford to write complitely unemotionally about the topic. Some of the critical statements he has hidden in the notes, probably for not totally offending the swamis. It has to be said, that this is not a spiritual book. The author avoids any spiritual statements. It's after all a history book.
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