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Rating: 
Summary: Not very good..
Review: I always hate doing this to an author but I almost didn't finish this book due to it's dryness. Avoide this outline.
Rating:
Summary: Not very good..
Review: I know a great deal about the history of religions and I was hoping this book would help supplement my knowledge about certain religion's beliefs. Unfortunately, this book has so many errors in its descriptions of the histories of religions that I have already studied that I could not trust the information that it had about religions I haven't studied.
For a few clear examples, his classification of Methodism, the third largest branch of Christianity in the World, as "alternative sects of Christianity" is erroneous in light of the fact that Amish and Baptist, both of which are smaller, are listed as major branches. Not to mention that few practitioners of Christianity would classify Mormonism or Christian Science as major sects of Christianity but would not consider Presbyterianism as a sect of Christianity!
Information-wise: The history provided about Methodism is completely inaccurate since Methodism was founded in England and has absolutely no roots whatsoever in Ireland and I don't even believe the founder, John Wesley is mentioned at all! He clearly and directly confuses the Baptist church with the much older and separate group the AnaBaptist while discussing the history. The Baptists may have a similar name to the Anabaptist but they were two different groups founded at different times.
Belief-wise: His description of the beliefs of Confucianism and Taoism have blatant errors as well. For several religions he spends so much time discussing the history of the religion that he almost completely glosses over the actual beliefs of the religion. I ended up sending the book back and picking up "A Brief Guide to Beliefs" by Linda Edwards and I would advise the serious seeker to take a look at that book before picking up this one.
I was not impressed at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Problems and Inaccuracies
Review: I know a great deal about the history of religions and I was hoping this book would help supplement my knowledge about certain religion's beliefs. Unfortunately, this book has so many errors in its descriptions of the histories of religions that I have already studied that I could not trust the information that it had about religions I haven't studied.
For a few clear examples, his classification of Methodism, the third largest branch of Christianity in the World, as "alternative sects of Christianity" is erroneous in light of the fact that Amish and Baptist, both of which are smaller, are listed as major branches. Not to mention that few practitioners of Christianity would classify Mormonism or Christian Science as major sects of Christianity but would not consider Presbyterianism as a sect of Christianity!
Information-wise: The history provided about Methodism is completely inaccurate since Methodism was founded in England and has absolutely no roots whatsoever in Ireland and I don't even believe the founder, John Wesley is mentioned at all! He clearly and directly confuses the Baptist church with the much older and separate group the AnaBaptist while discussing the history. The Baptists may have a similar name to the Anabaptist but they were two different groups founded at different times.
Belief-wise: His description of the beliefs of Confucianism and Taoism have blatant errors as well. For several religions he spends so much time discussing the history of the religion that he almost completely glosses over the actual beliefs of the religion. I ended up sending the book back and picking up "A Brief Guide to Beliefs" by Linda Edwards and I would advise the serious seeker to take a look at that book before picking up this one.
I was not impressed at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but inaccurate
Review: I thought the writing was relatively entertaining and the book was a smooth read, except for the parts where I got hung up on inaccuracies. I started out giving Mr. Pollack the benefit of the doubt, since he was trying to survey so many different religions, I understood that there wouldn't be a lot of depth. He often describes what takes place at a ritual without giving us a clue why anything occurs. A few actually useful pictures would have been helpful, particulary since his description of a yin/yang symbol is incorrect. He clearly didn't do deep research in an number of areas -- his section on "Sorcery" is from the HeroQuest gaming system. Judging from his description of Wicca (in which he doesn't mention Gerald Gardner!), he seems to take one subgroup's rituals and attributes them to an entire belief system. If you read this one, do it with a grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but inaccurate
Review: I thought the writing was relatively entertaining and the book was a smooth read, except for the parts where I got hung up on inaccuracies. I started out giving Mr. Pollack the benefit of the doubt, since he was trying to survey so many different religions, I understood that there wouldn't be a lot of depth. He often describes what takes place at a ritual without giving us a clue why anything occurs. A few actually useful pictures would have been helpful, particulary since his description of a yin/yang symbol is incorrect. He clearly didn't do deep research in an number of areas -- his section on "Sorcery" is from the HeroQuest gaming system. Judging from his description of Wicca (in which he doesn't mention Gerald Gardner!), he seems to take one subgroup's rituals and attributes them to an entire belief system. If you read this one, do it with a grain of salt.
Rating: 
Summary: Good guide, but a little inconsistent
Review: This is a good guide to the world religions. All the topics seem to be covered, and it's a good introduction. It concentrates on all the major religions, and also delves into the smaller know religions and different sects of the major religion. I can honestly say I know more after reading this bookOne thing I found annoying was the lack of consistency with the reporting of each religion. It would have been helpful if Pollack told the same information for each religion. He should start of with history, then the amount of worshipers, then where are they located, then what type of gods do they believe in, and so on. He tends to leave out a lot of information, whether due to his lack of information, or do to oversight. There are numerous examples, such as he explains that Buddhism overlaps with Hinduism. But how, where, and why? He doesn't explain, or his explanation was unclear. He writes a chapter about Jainism, but I never figured out if the Jains had a God or not. He doesn't give an approximation to the number of religious devotees to many religions, so I don't how major the religion is or not. Despite these flaws, it's still a very good book for the curious.
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