The World’s Religions was first published as The Religions of Man by Harper & Brothers in 1958, retitled in 1991 to reflect gender-inclusive language. It has sold over three million copies and remains the standard introductory text for comparative religion courses worldwide — a book that has shaped how two generations of educated Westerners understand the great religious traditions.
Smith’s method is distinctive and controversial. Rather than approaching religions from the outside — analyzing their historical development, their institutional structures, their social functions — he attempts to present each tradition from the inside: what does it feel like to be a devout Hindu, a serious Buddhist, a committed Confucian? What are the lived experiences, the spiritual practices, the transformative insights that these traditions offer their followers? Smith argues that you cannot understand a religion by cataloguing its beliefs and practices; you must enter sympathetically into its experiential core.
This approach has been criticized by scholars who find it insufficiently critical — Smith’s portraits of the world’s religions are generous, even idealized, presenting each tradition at its best rather than acknowledging its historical failures (violence, oppression, corruption). But Smith would reply that understanding must precede criticism: only after you understand why people find a tradition compelling can you meaningfully evaluate its claims and its record.
The book’s enduring appeal lies in Smith’s prose — lucid, engaging, and genuinely illuminating — and in his ability to make complex theological and philosophical ideas accessible without trivializing them. His chapter on Buddhism, for example, remains one of the clearest introductions to Buddhist thought available in English.
Collecting The World’s Religions
First edition (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1958, as The Religions of Man): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $50–$150
- Without jacket: $15–$40
- Revised edition (1991, as The World’s Religions): $5–$15