In his detailed ethnography of Ekoji, a multidenominational Buddhist temple in Richmond, Virginia, Wilson breaks new and fertile ground in the field of American Buddhism. His starting point is that scholars of American Buddhism have ignored regionalism as an interpretive lens, and have therefore failed to see the significant role geographical specificity has in shaping the practice of Buddhism in America. Hence, studies that are based in a few specific areas—California, Northeast, or Midwest—are misleadingly presented as representative of American Buddhism on a national scale. In Chapter 1, Wilson argues that regionalism can bring a more nuanced and rich understanding of Buddhist practice in America. The fascinating subsequent chapters confirm that this is indeed the case. After discussing the history of Ekoji, Wilson explores the ways in which the five different Buddhist groups it houses both create their own distinct, self‐defining religious identity and how they “consciously and unconsciously” assimilate aspects of each other's practice, doctrine, and material culture. Wilson asserts that this intentional permeability between the groups represents a distinct form of Buddhist community, which he labels a “pluralistic temple.” Using pluralism both as a term to denote multiplicity and as a religious ideal, Wilson explores the ways in which the shared space of Ekoji fosters Buddhist hybridity and reinforces American understandings of Buddhism as an essentially liberal religion. Meticulously researched and clearly written, Dixie Dharma is an absolute must‐read for scholars of Buddhism in America, and will also be of great value to the fields of American religion and religion in the South.
