i also agree about his poor treatment of religious topics. he thoroughly researched and reported on the economics, culture and government of india. however, his reporting on spirituality was lacking at best.

it seemed like he used all of the times that religion came up in the book to promote his own views on the topic. for example, he noted that a “strong” point of hinduism is that it generally encourages the view that there are many paths to God, stating this with as much authority as he did other provable facts.

aside from these things, i highly enjoyed the book. i found it very engaging… i couldn’t put it down after i started!