As a member of the Religious Studies Department at a liberal arts college, I found this book to be invaluable as a textbook for my Comparative Religious Ethics course, and as a personal reference for the history of ethics as expressed through the world's major religious traditions. The narrative approach utilized by the authors provides a wonderfully compelling and unique methodological alternative to what might otherwise have been a dry and prosaic treatment. The ancient "stories" of each tradition, ie., Krisna and Arjuna, Job, Jesus, Siddhartha Gautama, Muhammad, are presented as foundational for the ethical development within each tradition and are subsequently juxtaposed against a "modern" story of a figure, ie., Gandhi, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosemary Reuther, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Malcolm X, who utilized the ethical foundations of that tradition within the contexts of their lives. The underlying thesis of the book, that within the field of comparative religious ethics there is common ethical ground is furthered by the profound insight and scholarship of the authors who posit that common ground as a worldview which sees the universe not in terms of sacred/profane but in terms of a holy whole. Readers walk away with an understanding of the common ethical strains within the world's major religious traditions, as they have all been grounded in an ethic of inclusivity, of "welcoming the stranger", of compassion and universal love. A wonderful book, for the scholar or any interested reader. A timely book for the 21st century as the world confronts pressures and misunderstandings which continue to prevail as a result of humanity's religious diversity. This book offers a vision of unity and common ground relative and relevant to each tradition. My students and I were deeply affected and enlightened by this book and its vision. I have students who, though in dire need of finances, made the decision NOT to sell this book back to the college bookstore because it is a book they wanted always to own. There is perhaps no higher praise, nor greater recommendation than that!

What is the goal of this book? To teach the reader and the student that in the world there exists more than one way to examine an ethical issue. This book does a fabulous job of presenting the reader with a cornucopia of ancient stories that allowed modern day civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Thich Nhat Hanh to come to their conclusions. The authors present the ancient stories of the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus to allow the reader a broad perspective on the major religious movements throughout time. These stories start with the most ancient of stories, the story of Gilgamesh. Through the use of this narrative the authors present their views on ethics and religion and how it affects us today. The ever pervasive shift in modern human identity is one of the major "working issues" that all religions worldwide are facing today. Most importantly this book will help to clarify some of the misconceptions of the Muslim faith. The authors' narrative on the stories of both the Jewish and Islamic faiths can serve to enlighten the ignorant. This is very important as ignorance can turn out to be as dangerous as a loaded gun. This book is invaluable to every student of ethics and history. The stories within are concise and can be used outside of a religious studies class. Not only will this book continue to serve as a religious reference but it will also serve a moral guidepost to everyone that reads this text. I found this book to be highly invaluable both inside and outside the classroom. It is well worth the cost to purchase this book.

I used this book for an introductory level religious study course, so I read the entire book and had lectures in addition to the book. And I'm very glad that I had those lectures, otherwise I don't think I would have a very good idea about the main world religions covered in this book (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, far east religoins ie. Confucianism, Daoism). The authors of this book ramble on and on, with no general direction. The organization of the book is done fairly well, but at times the text makes no sense, skipping back and forth in time with no structure. I found that an extremely frustrating aspect of this book. It was impossible for me to get a general overview of each religion without reading many pages of inane details.

The book does provide a wealth of information on each of the religions covered, however. The chapter on Islam is particularly good, but it's easy to get lost in the vastness of information provided. Every period of history is covered for each religion, so there is plenty of good material covered.

But overall, the book did present each religion from its pre-modern start to its post-modern state today. Just sometimes, it wasn't clear on what direction the authors were heading.

I have used this book in an introductory class in World Religions. I have found the book to be very usable and filled with the kind of information one needs. At the same time, the authors do not lose sight of the central ideas, practices, and trends of each major religion.
In reading the book, one needs to keep in mind the structure of each chapter, which begins with general ideas of religious practices and beliefs today, then goes back in time to show how they got the way they are. When one reads thoroughly, one gets a good picture of where the major religions are today and possibly where they are going.
The index is thorough, and there are two appendices, one a vocabulary for each major religion, the other a time line of major developments for each religion. These are very useful. Also helpful are the review questions at the end of each chapter
The theme of the book is the confrontation of each religion with modernism, and its status now in a postmodern (postcolonial)world. This approach is highly informative and increases the interest of the reader. There is an introductory chapter on religion in general, and the first chapter on Christianity includes a discussion of how the modern era was born out of Protestantism. This means that Christianity is shortchanged somewhat because much of the discussion is on "modernism". There are some printing errors that need to be fixed.
I was very pleased with this book, and I highly recommend it.