These two volumes belong to the ‘How to Understand …’ or ‘How to Read …’ series, which is very wide-ranging, taking in such themes as ‘How to Understand the Virgin Mary’ and ‘How to Read the World: Creation and Evolution’. The format of these two volumes is reader-friendly, and if their price seems not to be, note that they are amply illustrated and, for that matter, double-columned (although the two columns are at best the equivalent of a longer than average page, not two average pages). Both are served by a bibliography, glossary and index. The volume on Hinduism contains an additional list of illustrations and even of the ‘boxes’ within the pages in which some of the material in the book is presented. The presentation is attractive, designed, as the titles suggest, as an introduction to their fields.

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