"The United States is the most religiously diverse nation in the world," Diana Eck writes in this eye-opening, de Toqueville-style guide to the religious realities of America today. Among her many observations, she notes that:

• The 1990s saw the U.S. Navy commission its first Muslim chaplain and open the first mosque
• Los Angeles is the most complex Buddhist city in the world
• There are more Muslim Americans than there are Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Jews

Especially since the Immigration Act of 1965 and the subsequent economy based on foreign-born labor, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrains, Jews, and CAtholics of all kinds have arrived from all over the world, building lives in the urban, suburban, and rural communities of every region in the United States.

Eck reveals how the world's religions are no longer on the other side of the world but right in our neighborhoods. This new religious diversity is becoming mor eimportant than racial ethnic, or nationalistic ties, and will be a source of great social and cultural strength.