1. Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources. Edited by C. Pierce Salguero. Columbia University Press, 2017. 704704 pages. $150.00 (hardcover), $119.99 (e-book).
Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Premodern Sources is a remarkable collection of translations of important primary sources related to the theory and practice of medicine and healing from across Buddhist Asia. There is nothing like it in English or any other modern language. Everyone who teaches Buddhism or Asian religions will need to acquire it and will find it of immediate value in their teaching and their deeper understanding of the Buddhist tradition and its many (sometimes unexpected) contributions to the cultures and societies of Asia. I hope that historians of European medicine will also incorporate this volume into their teaching and graduate training, since it offers an excellent introduction to a rapidly growing field of study. The volume is impressive not only because of its size (over 700 pages) and comprehensive scope, but also for the care with which it has been compiled. The individual chapters, written by an impressive array of both established and emerging scholars, are strong, but the editor, Pierce Salguero, has also given a great deal of thought to how such a complex volume might work as a single, integrated study. He is to be congratulated for having given us an essential and much-needed work. I know that I will be re-reading and referring to this volume for many years to come.
