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Average Customer Rating:

Interesting and Informative

Customer Rating:

This book was a great relief to find. Tackling an essay on world religions I needed books that were intelligently written but concise, and believe me, they're not that easy to find. This fills the bill exactly. It gives what I imagine is a brief overview of a complex religion without being patronising to that religion or dumbing down too much for the reader. It's a good mix of history, spread of the faith and the nuts and bolts of that faith in practice and mind set. It's by no means definitive, and freely acknowledges it, but as a place to start study it's perfect.

Accurate but insipid

Customer Rating:

Nesbitt's book has all the positive qualities one associates with the VSI series: it is clear, well-presented, readable and accurate. Just the sort of book Sikhs might think about giving to their non-Sikh friends and colleagues. There's a bit of theology, a touch of culture; politics makes an appearance, as does sociology. All the boxes seem to have been ticked. But there's the rub: reading it feels like a box-ticking exercise. Nowhere does the author try to capture the allure of Sikhism. Why would anyone want to be a Sikh? What is it about the faith that its believers find so attractive? What does Sikhi feel like from the inside? Of course the author can't answer those questions - she is not a Sikh. But she can ask them, both in her capacity as an ethnographer and, as she puts it, an intellectual questioner. One for the second edition perhaps?

An Excellent Introduction to the Sikh Religion

Customer Rating:

This book is titled "A Very Short Introduction to Sikhism" yet manages to cover all of the main points about Sikhism in an interesting and readable manner. A great strength is its contemporary feel, and its up-to-date references ensure that it becomes more than just another book about religion. Dr Nesbitt demonstrates her detailed knowledge about Sikhism describing the evolution of Sikhism from Guru Nanak Dev Ji to the modern day, making this book extremely readable by describing the `story' of Sikhism, with each chapter building on information presented in the previous one. I can recommend this book to anyone who requires a concise yet lively and well informed text on the Sikh Religion & Sikh History. A very welcome addition to the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in Religion in general, and Sikhism in particular.