A Critical Survey of Works on Zen since Yampolsky

While by no means the first solid Western piece of academic work on Zen in an era still dominated by the popular writings of D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, and Eugen Herrigel, as well as European scholarship by Demieville, Gernet, and Zurcher, Yampolsky set a new standard for what a translation and book-length study in the field should accomplish. Each of these works are being read and re-read by nearly everyone interested in Zen, Buddhist, or East Asian studies, or in religious studies, philosophy, or intellectual history more generally because they cross over lines normally dividing culture, period, or method or are outstanding case studies that set a model or standard for how scholarship should be carried out.